LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 
HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


V 


REMINISCENCES 


EARLY  BENCH  AND  BAR 


OF  ILLINOIS. 


BY 

GENERAL  USHER  F.  UNDER. 


WITH      AN      INTRODUCTION      AND      APPENDIX 

BY  THE 

HON.  JOSEPH  GILLESPIE. 


CHICAGO: 

THE  CHICAGO  LEGAL  NEWS  COMPANY. 

1879.       . 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1879  by 

THE  CHICAGO  LEGAL  NEWS  COMPANY, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington,  D.  0 


Printed,  Stereotyped,  Bound  and  Published 

BY  THR 

CHICAGO  LEGAL  NEWS  COMPANY. 


J>  .'4-  i^l^Ci 

L  ^ 


EXPLANATORY  NOTE. 


General  USIIEE  F.  LINDKR  commenced  liis  Reminis- 
cences in  December,  1874,  and  completed  them  in 
March,  1876. 

He  died  on  the  fifth  day  of  June,  1876,  in  the  city 
of  Chicago,  and  was  buried  in  Graceland  cemetery. 

Mrs.  Linder  survived  him  but  a  short  time,  and 
departed  this  life  on  the  14th  day  of  July,  1877. 

General  Linder  had  seven  children,  two  of  whom 
died  in  infancy.  The  remaining  five,  Mrs.  Rosa  A. 
Wilkinson,  Mrs.  Lillie  A.  Galliger,  Daniel  W.  Linder, 
a  member  of  the  Chicago  Bar,  Usher  F.  Linder,  and 
Eugene  B.  Linder,  are  now  living  in  Chicago. 

JAMES  B.  BKADWELL. 

March  10,  1879. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION 9 

ARRINGTON,  ALFRED  W. 234 

BAKER,  E.  D. 248 

BAIRD,  JOHN  P.          .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .  284 

BALLTNGALL,  PATRICK 392 

BENEDICT,  KIRBY .  196 

BISSELL,  WILLIAM  H .  177 

BLACKWELL,  ROBERT  S.     ". 310 

BOWMAN,  JOSEPH  G 286 

BREESE,  SIDNEY          . 141 

BROWN,  JOHN  J .        .        .  134 

BROWNING,  0.  H 83 

BUCKMASTER,  NATHANIEL      . 374 

BUTTERFIELD,  JUSTIN 

— Incident  of  the  Trial  of  Joe  Smith,  the  Mor- 
mon Prophet — Anecdotes  of    ....  87 

CAMPBELL.  THOMPSON 319 

CASEY,  ZADOCK           .        , 160 

CATON,  JOHN  D.     . 363 

CONSTABLE,  CHARLES  H.           282 

DAVIS,  DAVID .181 

DAVIS,  OLIVER  L 274 

DAVIDSON,  WILLIAM  H 272 

DEMENT.  JOHN 220 

(5) 


CONTENTS. 


DOUGLAS,  STEPHEN  A. 

— His  Rivalry  of  Lincoln — Power  in  the  Senate — 
Wouldn't  visit  Queen  Victoria  because  he  must 
appear  in  Court  dress — Was  received  by  the 
Emperor  of  Russia  in  the  same  dress  in  which 

he  visited  the  President  of  the  United  States  76 

DUNCAN,  JOSEPH 109 

DUBOIS,  JESSE  K. 68 

DUVAL,  WILLIAM 33 

EDDY,  HENRY 52 

EDWARDS.  BENJAMIN  S 350 

EDWARDS,  CYRUS 353 

EDWARDS,  NINIAN  W.                ,        .         .        .        .        .  279 

FICKLIN,  0.  B 110 

FIELD,  ALEXANDER  P 204 

FORD,  THOMAS 103 

FRENCH,  AUGUSTUS  C. C9 

GATEWOOD,  THOMAS  J.                  .     • 317 

GILLESPIE,  JOSEPH    .        .        .        .  -               .        .        .  121 

GREENUP,  WILLIAM  C.          .        .        .        .                .        .  380 

HANNEGAN,  EDWARD  A. 

— U.  S.  Minister  to  Prussia — He  dines  with  the 

Prime  Minister        .         .         .         .         .         .  138 

HARDIN,  BENJAMIN 30 

HARDIN  FAMILY,  THE 48 

HARDIN,  JEPHTHA 

— Anecdotes  of 44 

HARLAN,  JUSTIN 42 

HAYES,  SAMUEL  S 315 

HOGVN,  JOHN 371 

HUBBARD,  GURDON  S.           333 

HUGHES,  JAMES 232 

ILLINOIS  LEGISLATURE  OP  1S3C-7,  THE 

— Lincoln — Douglas — Brilliant  Railroad  Schemes 
— Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal — Removal  of  the 
Capital  to  Springfield  .  .  .  .55,  58, 61 


CONTENTS.  7 

PACE 

JUDAH,  SAMUEL 297 

KOERNER,  GUSTAVUS 189 

LAMBORN,  JOSIAH 258 

LINDER,  U.  F. 

— Early  Life  in  Kentucky — Removal  to  Illinois — 

First  Meeting  with  Lincoln — Retrospective        .  21, 

35,  37,  395 

LOCKWOOD,  SAMUEL  D. 264 

LOGAN,  STEPHEN  T.           155 

LOGAN,  JOHN  A 843 

MANIERRE,  GEORGE           . 393 

McCusRNAND,  JOHN  A. 71 

MCDONALD,  DAVID .  382 

MCROBERTS,  SAMUEL    .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .91 

MILLS,  BENJAMIN 89 

MINSHALL,  WILLIAM  A. 361 

MORRISON,  'J.  L.  D 366 

OGLESBY,  RICHARD  J.     .        .        .                ,        .        .        .  170 

PALMER,  JOHN  M 70 

PEARSONS,  JOHN 128 

POPE,  NATHANIEL ..  215 

REYNOLDS,  JOHN           148 

RICHARDSON,  WILLIAM  A. 85 

ROBINSON,  JAMES  G 1J>1 

ROBINSON,  JOHN  M.            .        .        .        ...        ...  268 

ROWAN,  JOHN .        .        .25 

RYAN,  E.  G .  378 

SAWYER,  JOHN  YORK 152 

SciIOLFIELD,  JOHN 230 

SEMPLE,  JAMES 218 

SHAW,  AARON 113 

SHIELDS,  JAMES 

— His  contemplated  Duel  with  Lincoln          .        .  65 


8  CONTENTS.    • 

PAGE 

SINGLETON,  JAMES 244 

SMITH,  LYLE 390 

SMITH,  ROBERT 359 

SMITH,  THEOPHILUS  W 260 

SNYDER,  ADAM  W 276 

SPRING,  GILES 386 

STUART,  JOHN  T .        .  347 

SUPREME  COURT  JUDGES 

— Wilson — Smith — Brown — Lockwood          .        .  73 

THOMPSON,  RICHARD  W.           293 

THORNTON,  ANTHONY 209 

THORNTON,  WILLIAM  F.     .        .        .                .        .        .  115 

TREAT,  SAMUEL  H.         •        -\ 388 

TRUMBULL,  LYMAN 163 

TURNEY,  JAMES 376 

USHER,  JOHN  P 290 

VOORHEES,  DANIEL  W.         .        .        .     _  .        .        .        .  253 

WALKER,  ISAAC  P. 356 

WEBB,  EDWIN  B 266 

WENTWORTH,  JOHN 338, 

WHITESIDE,  JOHN  D. 

— State  Treasurer — Secretary  of  Interior — Bearer 

of  Challenge  between  Lincoln  and  Shields        .  86 

WILLIAMS,  ARCHIE 238 

WILSON,  JOHN  M.          .               302 

WILSON,  ROBERT 358 

YATES,  RICHARD 225 

YOUNG,  TIMOTHY  R 192 

APPENDIX 

— Anecdotes  of  Benjamin  Mills,  A.  W.  Cavarly, 

Justin  Butterfield,  and  Benjamin  F.  Fridley    .  399 


INTRODUCTION. 


IT  is  perfectly  natural,  at  least  it  has  always  been,  from 
the  dawn  of  creation,  and  will  doubtless  be  (as  Governor 
Reynolds  used  to  say,  "till  eternity  in  the  afternoon")  the 
case  that  people  will  reverence  the  past  and  desire  to  be 
fully  posted  as. to  the  men  and  thje  events  of  by-gone 
periods;  and  this  is  particularly  the  case  in  reference  to> 
what  are  called  the  "  transition  periods"  in  the  history  of 
a  people.  Illinois  has,  within  the  last  forty  years,  been; 
passing  through  that  period.  Forty  years  ago  she  had 
not  to  exceed  140,000  inhabitants,  and  not  a  mile  of 
railroad;  now  she  has  a  population  of  at  least  3,000,000,. 
and  more  miles  of  railroad  than  any  other  State  in  the 
Union.  She  produces  more  of  the  means  of  subsistence 
than  any  territory  of  equal  extent  in  America. 

In  1838,  she  was  in  debt  more  than  $18,000,000.  She 
has  paid,  to  the  uttermost  farthing,  that  debt,  principal 
and  interest,  with  the  exception  of  a  small  sum — not  yet 
due — but  which  she  could  this  day  discharge  without 
occasioning  the  slightest  embarrassment.  She  is  in 
receipt  from  the  Illinois  Central  railroad  of  an  annual 
stipend,  varying  between  half  and  three-quarters  of  a 
million  of  dollars  —  enough  almost  to  run  the  State 
government.  She  has  cut  no  mean  or  inconsiderable 
figure  in  the  political  history  of  the  country.  In  I860, 
she  furnished  the  two  most  prominent  candidates  for  the 
Presidency;  one  of  whom  (Mr.  Lincoln)  was  elected  to. 

(9) 


10  INTRODUCTION. 

two  terms.  General  Grant,  another  of  her  citizens,  was 
chosen  as  President  for  two  terms.  Lincoln  and  Douglas, 
were  the  acknowledged  representatives  of  the  Republican 
and  Democratic  parties  throughout  the  Union.  Of  her 
sons,  more  than  259,000  enlisted  in  the  Union  army, 
besides  thousands  who  joined  the  Confederates. 

Of  the  character  and  integrity  of  her  public  men;  of 
the  prowess  of  her  sons  on  the  battlefield;  and  last, 
though  not  least,  of  the  prevalence  among  her  people  of 
the  desire  for  a  reconciliation  and  complete  restoration 
of  the  era  of  fraternal  good-will  and  mutual  friendship 
with  the  people  with  whom  we  were  so  recently  engaged 
in  deadly  strife,  Illinoisans  have  reason  to  be  proud. 
These  astonishing  results  are  owing,  in  some  degree,  to 
the  men  who  have  shaped  and  moulded  public  opinion 
amongst  us;  and  our  people  have  a  very  great  desire  to 
know  all  about  these  "  Fathers  of  the  Land."  Although 
it  was  my  privilege  to  be  personally  acquainted  with  most 
of  the  men  who  have  given  tone  to  Illinois  affairs,  I  have 
been  grieved  to  think  how  little  concerning  them  would 
be  rescued  from  oblivion,  and  how  insignificant  would  be 
the  knowledge  of  posterity  of  the  men  who  had  shaped 
the  destinies  of  Illinois. 

I  had  been  many  times  appealed  to  of  late  to  jot  down 
my  reminiscences  of  the  times  and  men  of  our  early  days 
in  this  State.  I  felt  my  own  unfitness  for  the  task,  and 
feared  that  no  one  having  the  experience  and  ability  to 
do  justice  to  the  occasion  could  be  found.  I  despaired 
of  its  accomplishment.  I  had  fixed  my  mind  upon  USHER 
F.  LINDER  as  the  man,  above  all  others,  whose  abilities 
and  opportunities  enabled  him  to  portray  the  men  and 
incidents  of  the  past  of  our  State  with  the  most  exact 
fidelity  and  precision;  but  I  had  no  intimation  or 
expectation  that  he  had  attempted,  or  would  attempt  the 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

task,  until  I  was  most  agreeably  surprised,  a  short  time 
since,  by  receiving-  a  note  from  his  son,  informing  me 
that  his  father  had  prepared  memoirs  or  reminiscences  of 
the  early  times  in  Illinois,  and  desiring  me  to  furnish  an 
introductory  chapter.  Under  any  other  circumstances, 
I  would  have  declined  the  task,  for  I  feel  assured 
that  book-making  is  not  my  forte,  and  my  foes  might 
exultingly  exclaim,  in  the  language  of  Job,  "Oh  that  mine 
enemy  would  write  a  book!  "  I  determined,  however,  let 
the  consequences  to  me  be  what  they  might,  to  comply 
with  the  young  man's  request,  and  contribute  my  mite  to 
bring  forth  the  "  Memoirs." 

I  believe  I  was  -as  well  acquainted  with  General 
Linder,  and  admired  him  as  much  as  any  living  man. 
We  became  acquainted  in  1836  or  1837,  and  for  years 
rode  the  "Circuit,"  and  practiced  law  together;  and,  so 
far  as  I  know,  the  most  cordial  relations  subsisted  between 
us.  We  co-operated  (as  he  states  in  his  "  Memoirs")  in 
the  General  Assembly  to  influence  legislative  action  on 
the  subject  of  railroads,  and  I  feel  fully  justified  in 
saying  that  it  was  mainly  owing  to  his  transcendent 
abilities  that  Illinois  now  has  three  railroads  running 
across  the  central  portion  of  the  State,  when,  if  his  policy 
had  not  prevailed,  we  would  have  had  but  one.  He,  and 
the  men  who  co-operated  with  him,  likewise  risked  their 
reputation  in  stamping  upon  the  charter  of  the  Illinois 
Central  railroad  the  taxation  feature.  He,  it  is  true, 
could  not  accomplish  this  object  in  the  House  (of  which 
he  was  a  member),  but  it  was  done  in  the  Senate,  where 
his  influence  was  potential.  Had  the  stand  not  been  then 
taken,  such  was  the  frenzy  for  railroads  amongst  our 
people  that  most  of  the  charters  would  have  passed 
exempting  railroad  property,  virtually,  from  taxation. 

General  Linder  was  pre-eminently  fitted  for  describing 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

the  incidents  connected  with  the  lives  and  characters  of 
the  men  who  figured  in  early  times  in  our  State.  In  the 
first  place,  his  acquaintance  was  more  extensive  than  that 
of  any  other  man  I  knew,  except  Douglas  and  Lincoln. 
His  practice  as  a  lawyer  was  wide-spread,  and  led  him 
into  all  parts  of  the  State.  Then,  he  had  a  faculty  of 
becoming  acquainted  with,  and  of  finding  out  all  about 
other  people,  that  was  unequalled.  His  memory  was 
retentive  in  a  wonderful  degree.  I  have  been  amazed 
and  amused  at  the  amount  of  information  he  would  glean 
in  his  first  stroll  about  a  town.  He  would  come  to  the 
hotel,  loaded  with  all  the  news  that  was  afloat,  and  how 
he  gathered  it  up,  nobody  could  tell».  He  could  penetrate 
character  at  a  glance;  he  was  as  quick  as  lightning,  and 
as  unerring  as  the  shafts  of  fate.  He  could  delineate  it 
with  great  accuracy,  and  in  graphic  terms. 

I  have  been  glancing  over  his  memoirs,  and,  although 
I  was  well  acquainted  with  nearly  every  person  spoken 
of,  I  find  that  he  describes  them  with  life-like  fidelity, 
and  portrays  them  in  colors  which  I  know  to  be  true,  but 
which  did  not  strike  me  before  I  had  read  these  memoirs. 

He  was  pre-eminently  impartial.  His  dislike  of  a  man 
never  caused  him  to  detract  in  the  slightest  degree  from 
his  merits.  In  his  memoirs  we  have  tho  opinions  of  an 
observing,  capable,  and  impartial  person,  and  I  think  he 
sheds  more  light  upon  the  history  of  Illinois,  in  his 
Reminiscences  (although  not  intended  to  be  directly  of  a 
historical  character)  than  in  any  production  I  have  seen. 

It  may  not  be  amiss  for  me  to  add  something  to  what 
General  Linder  has  said  of  himself.  He  was  a  man  of 
very  extensive  general  reading,  and  was  master  of  the 
English  classics,  and  kept  up  with  the  literature  of  the 
day.  He  was  well  posted  in  ancient  and  modern  history, 
and  had  considerable  skill  in  matters  pertaining  to 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

science.  All  these  branches  of  knowledge  he  could  turn 
to  good  account  whenever  require;!,  but  it  was  in  his 
capacity  of  a  lawyer  that  he  excelled.  Most  people  at 
first  supposed  that  he  was  merely  a  brilliant  orator,  and 
had  no  great  knowledge  of  law,  but  in  this  they  were 
wofully  mistaken.  U.  F.  Linder  was  a  profound  lawyer. 
He  understood  all  its  technicalities.  I  never  knew  any 
one  to  get  the  better  of  him  on  a  legal  point,  and  I  have 
seen  him  tested  many  a  time.  Any  one  who  calculated 
to  gain  a  case  against  Linder — without  having  the  law 
and  the  right  clearly  on  his  side — "  reckoned  without  his 
host,"  for  he  frequently  succeeded  with  the  law  and  the 
testimony  manifestly  against  him.  I  never  felt  that  a 
defendant  in  a  criminal  case  was  safe  from  a  verdict 
when  Linder  prosecuted,  no  matter  what  the  evidence 
'might  be  in  his  favor;  if  Linder  contended  for  a  conviction, 
our  only  hope  was  in  the  courts.  He  would  generally,  if 
there  was  nothing  in  a  case,  abandon  the  prosecution. 
But  woe  be  to  the  accused,  if  the  Attorney-General  did 
not  see  fit  to  nol  pros.,  and  the  law  was  not  clearly  with 
them.  I  always  believed  that  it  was  inhuman  to  confer 
the  office  of  prosecuting  attorney  upon  such  men  as 
Linder  and  Bissell. 

Prosecuting  attorneys  do  not  as  often  as  justice  requires 
forbear  to  prosecute.  Professional  pride,  the  habit  of 
regarding  the  accused  as  guilty,  which  all  prosecutors 
fall  into,  and  the  unrelenting  importunity  of  enemies  of 
the  defendant,  blind  these  officers  to  a  proper  sense  of 
duty,  and  justice  is  often  perverted.  These  sentiments  I 
know  are  not  in  accord  with  those  generally  entertained, 
but  they  are,  nevertheless,  worthy  of  acceptance. 
Ordinary  men  are  greatly  overmatched  by  such  prosecu- 
tors as  I  have  named.  I  have  known  Linder  to  get 
a  verdict  consigning  a  man  to  the  penitentiary  for 


14  INTRODUCTION. 

accidentally  killing  another  with  a  blow  of  his  fist,  in  a 
fight  which  he  did  not  begin,  because,  although  a  quiet 
man,  he  was  very  powerful.  His  offense  consisted  in 
being  big  and  strong. 

The  idea  originally  entertained  that  Linder  could  not 
be  a  deeply-reaJ  lawyer  grew  out  of  the  fact,  first,  that 
it  is  the  general  opinion  that  when  men  have  the  imagi- 
native faculty  in  a  high  degree,  they  are  deficient  in  the 
argumentative  quality.  That  was  Justin  Butterfield's 
idea.  He  was  trying  a  case  against  E.  D.  Baker,  a  man 
of  brilliant  parts,  who,  strangely  enough,  misquoted  a 
passage  of  poetry.  What  was  more  strange,  Butterfield 
corrected  him,  and  in  so  doing  said,  that  for  Baker  to  be 
ignorant  of  the  law,  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world — nobody  would  expect  anything  else — but  for  him 
to  be  at  fault  in  poetry,  was  marvelous  and  unpardonable. 

The  other  ground  was,  that  Linder  was  not  often  seen 
consulting  law  books;  but  his  legal  training  must  have 
been  very  fine,  and  his  aptitude  for  catching  a  point 
remarkably  strong.  It  was  not  true,  however,  that  he 
did  not  read  law.  He  studied  both  the  facts  and  the  law 
of  his  cases  carefully;  but  it  was  at  night,  or  at  odd  times, 
when  he  was  not  observed.  One  thing  is  very  certain — 
he  was  always  ready  to  produce  book  and  page  of  the 
authorities  in  support  of  his  positions.  Linder's  forte^ 
however,  was  in  addressing  a  jury.  There,  it  seemed  to 
me,  if  he  had  any  merits  in  his  case,  he  was  invincible. 

I  don't  know  that  I  can  convey  an  idea  of  his  efficiency 
in  any  better  way  than  by  describing  him  in  one  case, 
and  he  was  the  same  in  all  others,  under  similar  circum- 
stances. The  case  to  which  I  refer  is  the  one  mentioned 
in  the  memoirs  as  having  occurred  at  Kaskaskia.  I  will 
give  my  recollection  of  that  case. 
•  Linder  struck  our  circuit  at  Nashville,  "Washington 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

county.  The  court  adjourned  there  on  Thursday  even- 
in  jr.  Linder  and  I  were  too  far  from  our  homos  to  reach 

o 

them  and  return  to  Kaskaskia  by  the  following  Monday. 
The  Belleville  lawyers  went  home,  and  Linder  and  I 
wended  our  way  to  Kaskaskia,  and  put  up  at  a  hotel 
kept  by  one  Dcevers.  This  was  Linder's  first  appearance 
at  Kaskaskia.  He  took  a  stroll  about  town,  and  soon 
returned  with  his  budget  of  news.  Amongst  other  items 
he  had  discovered  that  our  landlord  had  sued  a  man 
named  Campbell  in  assault  and  battery,  laying  his  dam- 
ages at  $1,000,  and  expec'.ed  a  heavy  verdict,  on  account 
of  having  lost  a  portion  of  his  ear  in  the  skirmish. 
Campbell  had  offered  Linder  a  small  fee -at  a  venture, 
which  the  other  declined,  not  knowing,  as  he  said,  but 
that  the  landlord  would  employ  him,  and  if  he  did,  he 
would  make  it  pay  both  our  tavern  bills. 

I  liked  the  scheme,  but  told  Linder  that  I  thought 
Deevers  had  set  his  heart  on  getting  Trumbull  to  assist 
Baker,  his  resident  lawyer.  But  I  agreed  to  try  and  get 
him  in  for  Deevers.  Soon  after,  the  landlord  inquired 
who  my  companion  was.  I  pretended  to  be  much  sur- 
prised, and  said,  "  Is  it  possible  you  don't  know  General 
Linder,  the  Attorney-General,  and  the  greatest  lawyer  in 
the  State,  in  a  certain  class  of  cases?  In  slander  cases, 
or  in  assault  and  battery,  particularly  the  latter  class,  he 
has  no  equal;  and  if  you  have  any  friend  who  has  an: 
assault  and  battery  case,  tell  him  by  all  means  to  hasten 
and  employ  Linder." 

Deever  did  not  "bite,"  however,  and  I  told  the  Gen- 
eral. "Well,"  said  he,  "if  he  don't,  I'll  close  with 
Campbell,  and  give  Boniface  h — 1!" 

Sunday  night  Trumbull  drove  up,  and  the  landlord 
sprang  to  the  side  of  his  buggy,  and  engaged  him  before 
he  could  get  out.  I  reported  to  Linder,  and  he  posted 
off  and  made  a  bargain  with  Campbell. 


16  INTRODUCTION. 

The  case  was  set  for  Wednesday,  and  the  General 
bestowed  his  undivided  attention  upon  his  only  case.  He 
told  me  that  upon  looking  into  the  case,  he  found  that  if 
the  plaintiff's  attorneys  were  not  looking  out  sharp,  he 
would  get  the  advantage  of  them  in  the  pleadings,  and 
then  it  was  the  "  finest  case  he  ever  looked  into." 

His  opponents,  having  their  hands  full  of  business,  fell 
into  the  error  he  had  anticipated,  and  when  the  plead- 
ings were' made  up,  Linder  said  of  the  plaintiff,  as  Crom- 
well did  of  the  Scotch  army,  "The  Lord  hath  delivered 
thee  into  my  hands."  Linder  said  he  was  going  to  make 
one  of  the  finest  efforts  of  his  life,  and  I  believed  it,  in 
so  far  that  I  told  my  acquaintances,  and  among  them 
Judge  Pope,  that  there  would  be  music  in  court  on 
Wednesday.  I  said  to  him  that  I  thought  Linder  would 
out-do  himself  if  he  could  have  some  ladies  in  the  audi- 
ence. The  Judge  said  he  would  have  the  court  room 
filled  with  them. 

Kaskaskia  was  at  that  time  famous  for  the  elegance, 
intelligence,  and  fascination  of  its  ladies. 

The  day  arrived,  the  evidence  was  heard,  and  the  ladies 
graced  the  room.  Linder  was  in  perfect  trim,  and  when 
he  went  to  the  jury,  the  scene  baffled  description.  My 
stock  of  language  is  totally  inadequate  to  the  task  of 
giving  any  definite  idea  of  the  circumstances.  I  feel 
like  Burns,  when  he  says: 

"  But  here  my  muse  her  wings  maun  cower, 
Sic  flights  are  far  beyond  her  power." 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  merits  of  the  case 
-were  all  with  the  plaintiff,  the  jury^  without  leaving  their 
box,  returned  a  verdict  for  the  defendant.  I  was  so 
dazed  by  the  adroitness,  the  eloquence,  and  the  masterly 
ability  of  Linder,  that-  I  was  never  able  to  remember 
much  that  he  said.  Indeed,  I  don't  know  how  he  could 


INTRODUCTION.  17 

very  well  say  anything  in  such  a  case  that  would  be 
likely  to  stamp  itself  upon  the  memory  distinctly.  I 
think  he  gained  the  case  by  ridicule,  by  the  most  brilliant 
displays  of  rhetoric,  and  by  dramatic  effect.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  he  had  acquired  absolute  dominion  over  the 
jury,  and  that  if  he  had  called  upon,  them  to  render  a 
verdict  of  guilty  of  murder  against  poor  Deevers,  they 
would  have  done  so.  The  jury,  the  audience,  everybody 
was  convulsed  with  laughter,  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  Linder's  argument,  but  poor  Deevers,  and  he 
looked  very  much  like  a  man  going  to  the  gallows. 
Linder  gave  him  the  most  terrible  castigation  man  ever 
received.  Not  by  saying  severe  or  harsh  things  about 
him,  but  by  ridiculing  him  beyond  measure.  He  literally 
laughed  the  case  out  of  court.  The  court  adjourned 
upon  the  rendition 'of  the  verdict,  and  while  we  were 
going  out,  Deevers  said  to  me: 

"Oh  God!  why  didn't  I  take  your  advice,  and  employ 
that  man.  I  would  not  have  lost  my  case  if  I  had." 

"  Deevers,"  said  I,  "  when  I  take  the  pains  to  give  you 
good,  disinterested  advice,  hereafter,  you  will  be  apt  to 
follow  it." 

"Yes,  indeed,  I  will!"  said  he. 

The  first  thing  Deevers  would  say  to  me  when  I  met 
with  him  after  that,  would  be,  "Well,  Gillespie,  what  a 
fool  I  was,  that  I  didn't  take  your  advice  that  time." 

This  was  just  a  specimen  case.  Under  similar  cir- 
cumstances he  could  do  the  same  thing-  any  time.  He 
was  generally  equal  to  any  emergency,  and  it  was  sel- 
dom that  he  fell  below  himself.  He  had  a  soul  full  of 
humor;  it  beamed  in  his  eyes  and  glowed  in  his  counte- 
nance. I  have  watched  him  when  he  was  speaking,  and 
could  see  by  the  twinkle  of  his  eye  that  fun  was  coming 
before  his  language  gave  any  intimation  to  that  effect. 
2 


18  INTRODUCTION. 

Mr.  Lincoln  admired  him  greatly  as  a  speaker.  He 
told  me  that  he  and  Linder  were  once  defending  a  man 
who  was  being  tried  on  a  criminal  charge  before  Judge 
David  Davis,  who  said  at  dinner  time  that  the  case  must 
be  disposed  of  that  night.  Linder  suggested  that  the 
best  thing  they  could  do  would  be  to  run  Benedict,  the 
prosecuting  attorney,  as  far  into  the  night  as  possible,  in 
hopes  that  he  might,  in  his  rage,  commit  some  indiscre- 
tion that  would  help  their  case,  Lincoln  commenced, 
but  to  save  his  life  he  could  not  speak  one  hour,  and  the 
laboring  oar  fell  into  Linder's  hands;  "  but,"  said  Lincoln, 
"  he  was  equal  to  the  occasion."  He  spoke  most  interest- 
ingly three  mortal  hours  about  everything  in  the  world. 
He  discussed  Benedict  from  head  to  foot,  and  put  in 
about  three-quarters  of  an  hour  on  the  subject  of  Bene- 
dict's whiskers.  Lincoln  said  he  never  envied  a  man  so 
much  as  he  did  Linder  on  that  occasion.  He  thought  he 
was  inimitable  in  his  capacity  to  talk  interestingly  about 
everything  and  nothing,  by  the'  hour. 

No  matter  how  much  Linder  loved  admiration,  he 
never  refused  to  accord  the  due  meed  of  praise  to  others, 
although  they  might  be  his  rivals.  He  would  always 
"give  the  devil  his  due."  In  politics  he  was  extremely 
.liberal,  so  much  so  that  it  was  difficult  for  him  to  define 
his  own  position  at  times.  When  I  first  knew  him  he 
was  a  Jackson  man.  His  admiration  for  the  old  hero 
was  so  strong  that  he  rather  ignored  the  principles  which 
> characterized  the  Adams  and  Jackson  parties,  and  fol- 
lowed his  inclinations.  When  Jackson  was  out  of  the 
way,  and  the  contest  was  between  Clay  and  somebody 
•else,  he  consulted  his  judgment,  and  was  profoundly 
•convinced  of  the  correctness  of  the  old  Whig  principles. 
He  believed  that  we  were  a  nation,  and  not  a  mere 
league  of  States /  that  the  currency  of  the  country  should 


INTRODUCTION.  19 

be  national  in  its  character,  and  not  local;  that  we 
should  develop  and  derive  the  profits  from  the  mechani- 
cal and  manufacturing  industries,  and  that  it  was  within 
the  scope  of  the  powers  of  the  general  government, 
under  the  clauses  in  the  Constitution  which  allowed  it  to 
establish  post-roads  and  regulate  commerce,  to  construct 
internal  improvements  within  the  States,  and  thus  he 
was  a  Whig.  Being  a  man  of  strong  Southern  proclivi- 
ties, he  believed  that  the  abolition  of  slavery  would  be 
everlastingly  ruinous  to  the  South,  and  therefore  he 
differed  from  his  old  friend  Lincoln  on  the  question  of 
emancipation,  and  became  what  was  called  a  War  Demo- 
crat— that  is,  one  who  believed  in  the  unification  of  the 
country,  but  feared  that  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves 
would  be  attended  with  ruinous  consequences  to  the 
white  man.  General  Linder  occupied  the  same  position 
that  did  the  Hon.  John  T.  Stuart  (one  of  the  best  men  and 
ablest  thinkers  Illinois  has  ever  produced)  on  this  ques- 
tion. Both  sound  Whigs  from  conviction,  but  anticipat- 
ing direful  effects  from  the  abolition  of  slavery,  and  so 
could  not  be  Republicans.  I  differ  from  both,  and  think 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  most  far-seeing.  Neither 
Linder  nor  Stuart  believed  in  slavery,  but  they  did  pro- 
foundly believe  in  the  superiority  of  the  Caucasian 
family,  and  would  rather  endure  the  evils  of  slavery  than 
what  they  thought  would  be  the  ruin  of  the  white  race. 
In  attempting  to  write  an  introductory  chapter  to  these 
memoirs,  I  hesitate  to  allow  my  vapid  style  to  be  brought 
into  juxtaposition  with  their  glowing  pages.  But  a  truce 
to  excuses  and  apologies,  1  will  follow  the  bent  of  my 
inclination,  and  discourse  as  I  feel  inclined,  and  as  I 
know  my  old  friend  General  Linder  would  wish  me  to 
do,  if  he  were  alive  and  asking  me  to  do  this  himself.  1 
will  sum  up  the  character  of  General  Linder  by  saying 


20  INTRODUCTION. 

that  he  was  a  man  of  transcendent  abilities  in  the  forum 
and  at  the  hustings;  that  he  was  remarkably  candid  and 
fair  in  his  estimate  of  the  characters  of  men;  that  he 
was  genial  in  his  disposition  to  the  highest  degree,  and 
that  he  loved  his  country  pre-eminently.  He  was  a  good 
citizen,  a  kind  friend,  and  an  affectionate  husband  and 
father.  He  had  his  failings,  and  although  I  cannot  say 
that  they  leaned  to  virtue's  side,  I  do  maintain  that  none 
of  his  infirmities  were  groveling  or  despicable.  They 
were  such  as  may  be  reconciled  with  the  highest  honor. 
He  was  the  worst  enemy  to  himself.  He  filled  a  large 
space  in  public  estimation,  and  rendered  important  ser- 
vice to  the  country,  which  will  be  better  known  and 
appreciated  hereafter  than  it  is  now,  or  has  been  during 
his  life-time.  I  feel  assured  that  he  has  placed  the 
country  and  posterity  under  deep  and  lasting  obligations 
for  his  memoirs,  in  which  he  has  rescued  from  oblivion 
many,  names  of  benefactors  of  Illinois. 

Usher  F.  Linder  has  not  lived  in  vain.  He  has  fought 
a  good  fight,  and  been  honorably  gathered  to  his  fathers. 
Peace  to  his  ashes,  respect  to  his  memory,  is  the  prayer 
of  his  old  friend  and  admirer, 

J.   GILLESPIE. 


LINDER'S 

REMINISCENCES 


OF  THE 


]T  the  solicitation  of  many  friends,  I  sit  down 
to  write  a  history  of  my  life,  in  which  I  shall 
give  my  recollections  of  many  of  the  men  and 
events  of  my  day  and  time.  I  am  by  birth  a  native  of 
Kentucky.  I  wras  born  on  the  20th  day  of  March,  A.  D. 
1809,  in  Elizabethtown,  Hardiri  county,  Kentucky.  My 
youthful  and  schoolboy  days  are  full  of  many  beauti- 
ful recollections,  and  the  same,  perhaps,  may  be  said 
by  ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  who  have  lived 
to  be  as  old  as  I  am;  yet  there  are  passages  in  my 
early  life  that  I  would  fain  forget,  and  with  these  I 
propose  not  to  trouble  the  reader.  A  man's  life,  who 
has  lived  to  my  age,  may  well  be  compared  to  the 
four  seasons — Spring,  Summer,  Autumn  and  Winter. 
My  first  recollections  are  connected  with  country  life. 
My  father  owned  a  small  farm  in  what  was  called  the 
"Barrens,"  of  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  acres,  with 
an  extensive  spring  of  water  upon  it,  situated  nine 
miles  west  of  Elizabethtown. 

(21) 


22  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

My  memory  carries  me  back  very  distinctly  to  when 
I  was  about  six  years  old — perhaps  earlier.  I  remem- 
ber the  iirst  school  to  which  I  went,  and  riding 
there  on  my  father's  back.  The  old  pedagogue  who 
taught  this  school  was  John  Dougherty,  a  queer  old 
soul,  and  a  jolly  one  at  that.  He  boarded  alternately 
with  the  parents  of  his  pupils.  The  schoolhouse  was 
situated  in  the  midst  of  a  thick  growth  of  stunted 
blackjacks;  the  logs  of  which  it  was  built  were  cut 
from  these  trees  (wlrich  stood  around  about  it)  and 
was  covered  with  clapboards,  with  a  dirt  floor,  and 
one  of  the  logs  cut  out  for  a  window,  with  but  one 
door  for  an  entrance.  From  this  schoolhouse,  little 
smoothly-worn  paths  diverged  in  every\  direction, 
formed  by  the  juvenile  feet  that  came  from  every 
point  of  the  compass. 

It  was  in  this  house — these  sylvan  shades — this 
Arcadian  grove,  that  I  commenced  my  first  classical 
course  of  A  B  C's,  which  course  I  did  not  finish  until 
I  was  transferred  to  another  school,  and.  another 
teacher,  about  a  year  from  my  matriculation  with 
Dougherty,  from  which  the  reader  may  well  infer  that 
I  was  not  a  very  precocious  scholar.  Perhaps  it  will 
not  be  out  of  place  to  mention  here  that  the  wife 
whom  I  afterwards  married,  and  with  whom  I  have 
lived  for  over  forty-three  years,  went  to  this  same 
school,  and  being  younger  than  1,  was  carried  there 
on  the  back  of  her  eldest  brother. 

The  next  school  I  was  sent  to  was  kept  by  a  man 
whose  name  was  Samuel  Cavens,  with  whom  I  mastered 
my  A  B  C's,  and  learned  to  spell  in  two  syllables.  He 
was  a  kind,  good  man,  and  afterwards  rose  to  some 


LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES.  23 

distinction  in  Green  county,  Indiana;  became  clerk  of 
the  circuit  court,  and  also  represented  that  county  in 
the  Legislature  of  that  State.  Some  fifteen  years  ago,  I 
was  associated  with  the  late  Judge  David  McDonald, 
of  Indianapolis,  in  prosecuting  a  suit  of  some  magni- 
tude against  an  old  and  distinguished  lawyer  of  Indiana, 
in  the  Sullivan  circuit  court ;  while  there,  my  old 
preceptor,  wlio  flourished  in  an  adjoining  county,  came 
to  see  me,  to  ascertain  if  I  was  the  outgrowth  of  the 
boy  he  taught  his  A  B  C's  some  forty  years  before. 
He  seemed  as  proud  of  his  old  pupil  as  if  he  had  been 
his  own  son,  and  I  am  sure  I  was  far  from  being 
ashamed  of  him.  We  had  a  pleasant  time  in  talking 
of  the  old  times  and  old  men  of  Kentucky,  and  our 
mutual  nps  and  downs  of  life  since  my  schoolboy  days. 
This  may  seem  a  very  trifling  circumstance  to  the 
reader,  and  hardly  worthy  of  a  place  in  these  memoirs, 
but  every  professional  man  who  has  risen  from  poverty 
and  obscurity,  and  made  for  himself  a  name  in  the  legal 
world *bf  which  he  is  not  ashamed,  and  taken  his  place 
in  the  front  rank  of  his  profession,  knows  how  sweet  it 
is  to  recount  his  triumphs  to  an  old  school-fellow  or 
tutor.  But  of  all  the  incitements  to  great  and  super- 
human exertions,  the  approving  smiles  of  a  little  divin- 
ity, clothed  in  the  form  of  woman,  is  the  greatest. 

While  I  was  yet  quite  young,  my  father  removed  to- 
a  farm  some  two  miles  from  Elizabethtown,  on  the 
Shepherdsville  road,  and  I  was  still  kept  going  to- 
school;  sometimes  to  one  master  or  mistress,  and  then 
to  another.  I  distinctly  remember  Knawl,  Allison,, 
Mi-Grill  and  Mary  Martin.  How  tar  I  progressed 
while  under  the  instruction  of  these  various  teachers, 


24  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

is  scarcely  worth  recording.  Suffice  it  to  say,  I  had 
an  immoderate  love  for  juvenile  plays  and  sports  of 
all  kinds,  and  nothing  filled  me  with  greater  horror 
than  the  sight  of  a  school-house.  I  was  finally  trans- 
ferred to  the  school  kept  in  the  seminary  of  Elizabeth- 
town  by  an  excellent  man  and  teacher,  and  a  ripe 
scholar.  He  was  a  graduate  of  some  one  of  the 
Northern  or  Eastern  institutions  of  learning,  which 
one  I  do  not  now  remember;  but  it  was  while  with 
him  I  acquired  my  first  ardent  love  for  learning,  and 
made  rapid  progress  in  the  various  studies  assigned 
me,  English  grammar  being  my  favorite.  The  name 
of  this  gentleman  wras  John  Seward  Sweesey.  He 
went  into  politics,  and  was  succeeded  by  an  Eastern 
graduate,  by  the  name  of  Proctor.  With  him  I  stud- 
ied Latin  principally,  for  about  a  year,  when  my  father 
moved  to  Indiana,  and  of  course  took  me  with  him. 
At  this  time  I  could  not  have  been  over  thirteen  years 
of  age,  if  I  was  that  old. 

When  court  was  in  session  at  Elizabethtown,'it  was 
a  great  treat  to  me  on  Saturdays  to  go  to  the  court 
house  and  witness  the  encounters  between  the  lawyers, 
and  I  have  no  scruple  in  saying  that  at  this  bar  prac- 
ticed some  of  the  most  eminent  barristers  in  Kentucky, 
and  perhaps  in  the  Union. 


JOHN  ROWAN.  25 


JOHN  BOWAK 


|T  the  head  of  this  bar  stood  John  Rowan,  of 
Bardstown,  who  had  distanced  all  competitors 
as  a  great  criminal  lawyer,  and  who  stood  pre- 
eminently high' in  every  department  of  jurisprudence; 
snperadded  to  this,  his  conversational  powers  were 
only  surpassed  by  his  great  learning  and  his  subtle  dis- 
quisitions as  a  lawyer.  He  was  a  great  man — a  very 
yreat  man;  and  what  is  more,  he  not  only  acted  the 
great  man,  but  he  looked  the  great  man.  A  stranger 
of  any  discernment  would  pick  him  out  of  a  thousand 
and  inquire  who  he  was.  I  think  he  was  the  grandest 
and  most  magnificent  specimen  of  humanity  I  ever 
saw.  I  never  saw  but  one  man  whose  personal  appear- 
ance reminded  me  of  Ho  wan,  and  that  was  the  late 
Henry  Eddy  of  Shawn eetown. 

•  Rowan's  father  was  quite  a  poor  man,  and  had  a 
large  family  to  support,  and,  consequently,  John  was 
the  only  one  of  his  sons  who  received  a  liberal  educa- 
tion. His  name  became  almost  a  household  word 
throughout  Kentucky,  the  Middle  States  and  the 
Northwestern  Territories.  He  was  sent  for,  far  and 
near,  to  defend  in  cases  of  murder,  and  no  lawyer  ever 
had  greater  success,  he  but  seldom  losing  a  case.  He 


26  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

was  never  known  to  take  a  fee  to  prosecute  in  a  crimi- 
nal case.  lie  regarded  ,it  as  mean,  mercenary  and 
dishonorable  to  do  so,  looking  upon  the  fee  in  snch 
cases  as  the  wages  or  price  of  blood.  He  placed  the 
lawyer  who  prosecuted  for  money  and  the  highway- 
man on  the  same  level.  He  was  a  man  of  the  noblest 
and  most  refined  sensibilities,  and  scrupulously  con- 
scientious. He  never  sought  a  quarrel,  but  being  in, 
would  fight  it  out. 

A  Doctor  Chambers,  of  Bardstown,  having  become 
jealous  of  Rowan,  without  cause,  challenged  him. 

Rowan  tried  every  honorable  expedient  to  avoid  a 
hostile  meeting,  but  nothing  would  satisfy  the  jealous, 
man  but  the  blood  of  Rowan.  Finally  Rowan  accepted 
the  challenge,  and  they  fought  with  pistols,  at  ten 
paces.  Chambers  fell  at  the  first  fire,  mortally 
wounded,  and  such  was  the  great  popularity  and  high 
standing  of  Chambers,  that  Rowan  for  a  long  time  had 
to  conceal  himself,  until  the  public  excitement  died  out. 

Rowan's  power  in  criminal  cases  consisted  in  the 
subtle  character  of  his  reasoning,  and  in  raising  a 
doubt.  He  was  never  stormy  or  passionate;  his  style 
being  almost  conversational,  yet,  when  occasion 
required  it,  he  could,  in  a  mere  whisper,  stir  the  deep- 
est feelings  of  compassion  and  pity,  and  convulse  the 
whole  audience  in  tears. 

In  a  civil  suit  for  damages  for  the  seduction  of  an 
accomplished  and  beautiful  girl,  of  good  family,  Rowan 
being  for  the  plaintiff',  after  stating  the  facts  of  the 
case  in  all  their  most  aggravating  aspects,  he  closed  ty 
quoting,  in  a  most  pathetic  tone,  the  beautiful  and 
tender  lines  from  the  "Vicar  of  Wakefield  ": 


JOHN  R.OWAN.  27 

"  When  lovely  woman  stoops  to  folly, 

And  finds  too  late  that  men  betray, 
No  art  can  soothe  her  melancholy, 

No  charm  can  drive  her  guilt  away. 

"  The  only  art  her  guilt  to  cover, 

And  hide  her  shame  from  every  eye, 
And  bring  repentance  to  her  lover, 

And  wring  his  bosom,  is  to  die.'' 

He  was  somewhat  Johnsonian  in  his  conversational 
style,  yet  words  in  abundance  were  at  his  command, 
and  came  forth  in  easy  and  unrestrained  fluency.  His 
thoughts  were  grand  and  magnificent,  and  he  clothed 
them  all  in  royal  purple.  He  dealt  largely  in  the 
metaphorical  and  figurative.  I  can  only  give  one 
specimen  which  I  heard  myself,  at  least  fifty  years  ago. 

It  was  a  case  in  which  a  bank  was  plaintiff  and  one 
of  its  officers  defendant — Rowan  for  the  defense,  Ben 
Hard  in.  for  the  plaintiff.  There  was  a  little  pyramid 
of  books  of  the  bank  stacked  up  between  the  bar  and 
the  jury-box — day-books,  journals,  ledgers,  etc.  I  shall 
never  forget  his  words  or  his  manner.  It  was  near  the 
close  of  his  very  learned  and  ingenious  argument  that 
he  remarked:  "Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  it  has  been 
well  said  that  corporations  have  no  souls.  I  cordially 
indorse  the  sentiment;  money,  money,  gentlemen,  is 
their  god.  These  books  (laying  his  hand  on  the  pile 
of  bank  books)  their  Bible,  a  counting  house  their 
sanctuary." 

His  forte  did  not  lie,  as  I  have  before  intimated, 
in  carrying  away  the  jury  by  impassioned  appeals  to 
their  hearts;  to  obtain  a  verdict  of  acquittal  was  with 
him  a  game  of  skill.  He  often  cheated  the  jury,  and 
snatched  a  verdict  where  all  the  circumstances  and 


28  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

indicia  of  guilt  pointed  towards  his  client.  He  once 
opened  his  defense  in  a  case  of  murder  in  the  follow- 
ing singular  but  candid  manner:  "Gentlemen  of  the 
jury,  taking  all  the  evidence  into  consideration  that 
has  been  adduced  in  this  case,  the  probabilities  are 
that  my  client  committed  the  deed;  this  I  frankly 
admit,  but  mere  probabilities  will  not  be  sufficient  to 
work  a  conviction  unless  they  produce  in  the  mind  of 
the  jury  the  conviction  that  there  is  a  moral  certainty 
of  his  guilt — such  as  leaves  no  doubt  resting  in  the 
mind  of  the  jury;  to  that  certainty  and  that  doubt  I 
propose  to  address  myself." 

It  used  to  be  a  saying  amongst  the  members  of  the 
bar,  when  Rowan  had  a  hard  case  of  murder  to  defend, 
and  public  opinion  pronounced  him  guilty  in  advance 
of  a  trial,  "  No,"  said  they,  "  not  if  Rowan  can  get 
in  his  wooden  horse."  Counsel  on  the  opposite  side, 
anticipating  the  skill  and  ingenuity  of  Rowan,  would 
often  playfully  caution  them  "  to  look  out  for  the 
Grecian  horse." 

I  know  not  if  any  regular  biography  has  been  writ- 
ten of  Mr.  Rowan.  He  certainly  deserves  to  have  an 
abler  biographer  than  I  am,  and  I  trust  the  imperfect 
sketch  here  given  of  this  great  man  will  not  be  con- 
strued as  an  attempt  on  my  part  to  write  his  bio- 
graphy. Had  he  not  been  of  my  profession,  practic- 
ing at  the  Elizabeth  bar,  I  should  not  have  written 
this  short  sketch. 

Rowan's  personal  appearance  was  very  imposing. 
He  was  about  six  feet  high,  and  well  proportioned, 
possessing  that  leonine  look  about  the  head  and 
shoulders,  which  captivated  all  beholders.  In  dress  he 


JOHN  KOWAN.  29 

followed  the  advice  of  Polonius  to  his  son  Laertes — 
it  was  "  rich  but  not  gaudy." 

A  well- written  life  of  John  Eowan  would  add 
greatly  to  our  stock  of  "Western  literature,  and  would 
be  a  great  treat  to  any  Kentucky  lawyer,  however  far 
he  may  have  wandered  from  the  natale  solum — the 
glorious  old  Kentucky.  Oh,  Kentucky — the  lawyers 
of  Kentucky! 


30  LLNDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


BENJAMIN  HAKDIK 


]HE  next  great  lawyer  at  my  native  bar  was  Ben 
Hardin.  With  liim  my  acquaintance  com- 
menced even  in  my  boyhood,  and  continued -up 
to  the  time  of  my  leaving  Kentucky,  in  1835,  for  the 
State  of  Illinois.  He  was  one  of  the  sons  of  Anak  in 
intellect  and  stature,  and  almost  as  awkward  and  un- 
gainly in  person  as  our  late  lamented  Lincoln.  I 
hardly,  at  this  distance  of  time,  know  how  to  draw  his 
legal  portrait.  An  accomplished,  deeply  erudite  jurist 
he  certainly  was  not;  but  as  a  successful  practitioner, 
both  before  court  and  jury,  and  in  courts  of  equity  as 
well  as  courts  of  law,  1  know  of  no  lawyer  in  Kentucky 
who  stood  above  him.  As  a  speaker,  he  wielded  a 
sharp  but  coarse  blade,  and  woe  to  him  who  provoked 
its  edge!  I  can  say,  in  all  sincerity,  I  never  listened 
to  a  more  interesting  speaker  than  Bcu  Hardin.  I 
generally  obtained  leave  of  absence  during  the  term  of 
our  circuit  court,  and  I  have  always  considered  it  as 
time  well  spent.  I  give  to  Ben  Hard  in  the  credit  (if 
any  is  due)  of  putting  the  torch  to  my  youthful  ambi- 
tion. 

He  was  sought  for  by  all  the  various  classes  of  liti- 
gants, even  before  Rowan,  \\ith  the  single. exception 
of  cases  of  murder.  His  practice  lay  principally  in 


BENJAMIN  HARDIN.  31 

the  north  of  the  Green  River  country,  in  Judges 
Booker  and  McLean's  circuits,  and  also  in  the  courts 
of  Louisville  and  Frankfort. 

The  reader  is  doubtless  aware  that  our  system  of 
law  in  Kentucky  governing  our  titles  to  land  was  one 

«/      «3  zj 

borrowed  from  Virginia,  and  was  one  of  the  great 
obstacles  in  the  early  settlement  of  the  State  of  Ken- 
tucky; a  system  that  made  many  lawyers  rich  and 
many  good  men  poor. 

There  was  a  man  in  the  county  of  Jefferson,  of 
which  Louisville  was  the  county  seat,  by  the  name  of 
Jack  Hundley,  who  had  made  an  immense  fortune  for 
that  day,  by  trading  in  negroes  with  the  South,  and 
when  he  came  to  die,  being  a  Presbyterian,  he  willed 
the  bulk  of  his  fortune  to  the  Presbyterian  church. 
He  was  a  bachelor.  His  brothers  and  sisters  brought 
a  suit  to  break  the  will.  Ban  Hard  in  was  their  law- 
yer. The  bill  was  filed  in  the  Jefferson  circuit  court, 
and  my  recollection  is,  that  the  church  took  a  change 
of  venue  to  Shelby  county;  but  of  that  I  am  not  pos- 
itively certain,  though  I  have  a  graphic  description  of 
the  trial.  The  clergy  in  vast  numbers,  dressed  in 
black,  formed  two  wings  of  the  court,  about  ten  on 
each  side  of  the  Judge,  who  had  not  the  courage  to 
make  them  take  their  places  with  the  rest  of  the 
crowd.  When  Ben  Hardin  came  to  address  the  jury, 
he  said:  "Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  have  you  ever  seen 
an  old  dead  horse,  or  any  other  dead  carcass,  where 
the  buzzards  congregated  to  feast  upon  the  carrion  ? 
If  you  ever  have  seen  that,  you  have  now  an  opportu- 
nity of  seeing  something  that  greatly  resembles  it. 
Behold  the  black-coated  gentry  who  have  presented 


32 


LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


themselves  on  this  occasion,  to  over-awe  and  'influence 
the  verdict  of  the  jury!" 

He  went  on  to  show  that  undue  influence  had  been 
used  by  the  Presbyterian  church  and  its  ministers,  to 
appropriate  the  vast  fortune  of  Jack  Hundley  to  them- 
selves, and  cheat  his  blood  relations  out  of  that  which 
was  their  natural  inheritance.  Before  he  concluded, 
the  buzzards  disappeared,  and  the  jury  retired  and 
were  out  but  a  short  time  when  they  came  in  with. a 
verdict  which  knocked  Jack  Hundley's  will  into 
spasms. 


WILLIAM  DUVAL.  33 


WILLIAM   DUVAL. 


HAVE  now  given  the  reader  a  view  of  ROAV- 
an  and  Hardin.  There  were  others  of  that 
bar  who  are  entitled  to  my  notice,  having 
excited  in  me,  even  when  a  boy,  the  desire  to  figure  at 
the  bar,  amongst  whom  was  Ben  Chapeze,  Tom  Chil- 
ton,  Dick  Rudd,  Governor  William  Duval,  Ben  To- 
bin,  a  nephew  of  Ben  Hardin,  and  many  other  distin- 
guished lawyers,  not  one  of  whom  but  would  grace 
any  bar  in  the  Union. 

Governor  William  Duval  was  one  of  the  most  social 
and  interesting  men  I  ever  knew.  He  was  Governor 
of  Florida  when  it  was  a  territory.  In  a  social  chat 
amongst  us  lawyers,  he  kept  us  in  constant  roar  of 
laughter.  He  gave  us  an  account  of  one  of  Bona- 
parte's nephews— one  of  the  Murats,  who  had  a  fine 
estate  in  Florida — whom  the  Governor  on  one  occasion 
invited  to  take  dinner  with  him,  at  Tallahassee.  He 
said  his  cook  had  provided  a  large  amount  of  wild 
fowl  of  every  description — wild  ducks,  geese,  cranes, 
and  every  other  fowl  of  which  you  can  possibly  con- 
ceive— to  which  the  young  Murat  did  full  justice,  and 
seemed  very  much  pleased,  and  addressing  himself  to 
Governor  Duval,  said: 

'"Governor,  you  have  fine  wild  fowls  in  this  country. 
3 


34  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

I  have  killed  and  cooked  a  great  many  of  them; 
but,  Governor,  there  is  one  bird  that  is  indigenous  to 
this  country  which  I  do  not  very  much  like.  I  killed 
him  and  brought  him  in,  and  he  stunk  so  bad  that  my 
servant  and  I  could  not  divest  him  of  his  feathers. 
Oh,  by  Gar,  sare,  it  made  me  vomit ! " 

Duval  asked  him  to  describe  the  bird  he  spoke  of. 

"  Well,  sare,  I  saw  him  and  about  a  hundred  others 
sitting  on  a  log,  with  their  wings  spread  out,  near  to 
an  old  dead  horse,  and  I  concluded  to  kill  one  of  them 
— they  looked  so  much  like  turkeys.  I  killed  one  of 
them ;  I  cooked  him,  sare.  My  God,  sare,.I  puked  like 
I  had  taken  an  emetic  ! " 

"  "Why/'  said  Governor  Duval,  "it  was  a  turkey 
buzzard — the  meanest  bird  in  our  country." 

"  Oh,  yes,  Governor,  by  Gar,  it  was  the  God  damn 
buzzard ! " 


LINDEE  REMOVES  TO  ILLINOIS.  35 


LIKDEK  EEMOTES  TO  ILLINOIS. 


the  summer  of  1835, 1  removed  to  the  State 
of  Illinois  with  my  family,  which  then  con- 
sisted of  myself  and  wife  and  little  daughter 
and  son.  We  landed  at  my  father's  house,  on  the 
National  Road,  then  being  constructed  by  the  National 
Government  from  Terre  Haute  to  Yandalia,  having 
been^  finished  from  Fort  Cumberland  through  Ohio 
and  Indiana  to  Terre  Haute.,  a  flourishing  town  situated 
on  the  Wabash  River,  a  most  beautiful  site,  like  all 
the  other  towns  originally  settled  by  the  French — such 
as  Vincennes,  Kaskaskia,  Peoria  and  others.  Illinois 
was  a  vast  and  fertile  plain,  bounded  on  the  east  by 
the  Wabash  River,  on  the  south  by  the  Ohio,  on  the 
west  by  the  Mississippi,  and  on  the  north  by  Lake 
Michigan  and  the  State  of  "Wisconsin. 

When  I  arrived  in  Illinois,  on  the  12th  of  July, 
1835,  it  looked  to  me  like  a  vast  wilderness  of  flowers, 
with  a  soil  as  rich  and  fertile  as  ever  a  crow  flew  over. 
It  seemed  to  me  as  if  the  Lord  had  created  it  as  a 
paradise  for  farmers.  But  when  we  were  all  laid  on 
our  backs  with  the  chills  and  fever,  with  water  unfit 
even  for  a  beast  to  drink,  I  sighed  when  I  thought  of 
the  hills,  knolls,  valleys  and  the  purling  fountains 
that  gushed  in  coolness  from  the  hill-side,  and  went 


36  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

dancing  and  babbling  to  the  sea.  And  when,  in 
October,  death  snatched  from  our  arms  our  darling 
little  boy — John  Calhoun  Linder — Illinois  seemed  to 
have  no  charms  left  for  me,  and  I  resolved,  as  soon 
as  \ve  were  all  recovered  from  the  dreadful  epidemic, 
which  then  prevailed  all  over  the  State,  and  which  laid 
every  member  of  mine  and  my  father's  family  on  their 
backs,  to  return  to  Kentucky  and  accept  poverty  as  a 
boon,  if  we  could  only  be  blessed  with  health.  But 
when  all  recovered  again,  and  but  one  was  lost,  I 
began  to  look  about  to  see  if  there  was  not  something 
in  Illinois  for  me. 

The  judicial  system  was  very  similar  to  that  of 
Kentucky.  The  highest  courts  of  general,  original, 
chancery  and  common  law  jurisdiction  were  the  cir- 
cuit courts.  There  was  not  over  seven  or  eight  of 
these  circuits  when  I  came  to  the  State.  I  settled  in 
Coles  county,  in  a  little  village  called  Qreenup,  named 
after  old  Col.  Wm.  C.  Greennp,  who  laid  it  off  and 
was  one  of  its  proprietors'.  He  came  to  the  State 
while  it  yet  was  a  territory,  and  was  the  Secretary  of 
the  Constitutional  Convention  that  was  convened  at 
Kaskaskia,  and  formed  the  first  Constitution  of  this 
State. 

The  national  road  was  then  being  constructed 
through  Illinois.  It  was  the  only  public  work  I 
remember  at  that  time  in  Southern  Illinois.  It  fur- 
nished employment  for  a  vast  number  of  workmen 
and  laborers,  by  which  many  a  poor  man  and  new 
comer  earned  the  money  wherewith  to  pay  his  taxes, 
doctor's  bill,  and  to  lay  in  a  supply  of  food  and  cloth- 
ing for  the  winter  of  1835  and  1836.  Charleston,  the 


LINDEK  REMOVES  TO  ILLINOIS.  37 

county  seat  of  Coles,  was  about  twenty  miles  north  of 
Greenup.  It  was  laid  out  by  a  man  from  Fayette 
county,  Ky.,  by  the  name  of  Charles  S.  Morton." 

FIRST   MEETING   WITH   LINCOLN. 

I  did  not  travel  on  the  circuit  in  1835,  on  account 
of  iny  health  and  the  health  of  my  wife,  but  attended 
court  at  Charleston  that  fall,  held  by  Judge  Grant,  who 
had  exchanged  circuits  with  our  judge,  Justin  Harlau. 
It  was  here  I  first  met  Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Spring- 
field, at  that  time  a  very  modest  and  retiring  man, 
dressed  in  a  plain  suit  of  mixed  jeans.  He  did  not 
make  any  marked  impression  upon  me,  or  any  other 
member  of  the  bar.  He  was  on  a  visit  to  his  rela- 
tions in  Coles,  where  his  father  and  stepmother  lived, 
and  some  of  her  children.  Lincoln  put  up  at  the 
hotel,  and  there  was  where  I  saw  him.  Whether 
he  was  reading  law  at  this  time  I  cannot  say. 
Certain  it  is,  he  had  not  then  been  admitted  to  the 
bar,  although  he  had  some  celebrity,  having  been  a 
captain  in  the  Black-Hawk  campaign,  and  served  a 
term  in  the  Illinois  Legislature;  but  if  he  won  any 
fame  at  that  season  I  have  never  heard  of  it.  He 
had  been  one  of  the  representatives  from  Sangamon. 
If  Lincoln  at  this  time  felt  the  divine  afflatus  of  great- 
ness stir  within  him  I  have  never  heard  of  it.  It  was 
rather  common  among  us  then  in  the  West  to  sup- 
pose that  there  was  no  presidential  timber  growing  in 
the  Northwest,  yet  he  doubtless  had  at  that  time  the 
stuff  out  of  which  to  make  half  a  dozen  presidents. 

I  had  known  his  relatives  in  Kentucky,  and  he  asked 
me  about  them.  His  uncle,  Mordecai  Lincoln,  I  had 


38  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

known  from  my  boyhood,  and  he  was  naturally  a  man 
of  considerable  genius;  he  was  a  man  of  great  droll- 
ery, and  it  would  almost  make  you  laugh  to  look  at 
him.  I  never  saw  but  one  other  man  whose  quiet, 
droll  look  excited  in  me  the  same  disposition  to  laugh, 
and  that  was  Artemas  Ward.  He  was  quite  a  story- 
teller, and  they  were  generally  on  the  smutty  order, 
and  in  this  Abe  resembled  his  Uncle  Mord,  as  we  all 
called  him.  He  was  an  honest  man,  as  tender- 
hearted as  a  woman,  and  to  the  last  degree  cliari table 
and  benevolent. 

~No  one  ever  took  offense  at  Uncle  Mord's  stories — 
not  even  the  ladies.  I  heard  him  once  tell  a  bevy  of 
fashionable  girls  that  he  knew  a  very  large  woman 
who  had  a  husband  so  small  that  in  the  night  she  often 
mistook  him  for  the  baby,  and  that  upon  one  occasion 
she  had  armed  him  with  a  diaper  and  was  singing  to 
him  a  soothing  lullaby,  when  he  awoke  and  told  her 
that  the  baby  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  bed. 

Lincoln  had  a  very  high  opinion  of  his  uncle,  and 
on  one  occasion  said  tome:  "  Linder,  I  have  often 
said  that  Uncle  Mord  had  run  off  with  all  the  talents 
of  the  family." 

Old  Mord,  as  we  sometimes  called  him,  had  been  in 
his  younger  days  a  very  stout  man,  and  was  quite  fond 
of  playing  a  game  of  fisticuifs  with  any  one  who  was 
noted  as  a  champion.  He  told  a  parcel  of  us  once  of 
a  pitched  battle  he  had  fought  with  one  of  the  champ- 
ions of  that  day.  He  said  they  fought  on  the  side  of 
a  hill  or  ridge;  that  at  the  bottom  there  was  a  rut  or 
canal,  which  had  been  cut  out  by  the  freshets.  He 
said  they  soon  clinched,  and  he  threw  his  man  and  fell 


LINDER  REMOVES  TO  ILLINOIS.  39 

on  top  of  him.  He  said  he  always  thought  he  had  the 
best  eyes  in  the  world  for  measuring  distances,  and 
having  measured  the  distance  to  the  bottom  of  the 

O 

hill,  he  concluded  that  by  rolling  over  and  over  till 
they  came  to  the  bottom  his  antagonist's  body  would 
lill  it,  and  he  would  be  wedged  in  so  tight  that  he 
could  whip  him  at  his  leisure.  So  he  let  the  fellow 
turn  him,  and  over  and  over  they  went,  when  about  the 
twentieth  revolution  brought  Uncle  Mord's  back  in 
contact  with  the  bottom  of  the  rut,  "  and,"  said  he, 
"  before  hell  could  scorch  a  feather,  I  cried  out  in 
stentorian  voice:  '  take  him  off'!'  " 

I  could  tell  many  more  of  Uncle  Mord  Lincoln's 
stories,  but  these  two  will  serve  as  specimens.  His 
sons  and  daughters  were  not  talented,  like  the  old  man, 
but  were  very  sensible  people,  noted  for  their  honesty 
and  kindness  of  heart. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  born  in  Hardin  county 
(now  La'  Rue),  within  ten  miles  of  the  place  where 
I  first  saw  the  light,  and  a  little  over  a  month 
ahead  of  me.  His  mother,  whose  maiden  name  was 
Nancy  Hanks,  was  said  to  be  a  very  strong-minded 
woman,  and  one  of  the  most  athletic  women  in  Ken- 
tucky. In  a  fair  wrestle,  she  could  throw  most  of  the 
men  who  ever  put  her  powers  to  the  test.  A  reliable 
gentleman  told  me  he  heard  the  late  Jack  Thomas, 
clerk  of  the  Grayson  Court,  say  he  had  frequently 
wrestled  with  her,  and  she  invariably  laid  him  on  his 
back.  Lincoln  himself  was  a  man  of  great  physical 
powers — a  perfect  type  of  sinews  and  muscles  wrapped 
around  enormous  bones. 

The  impression  that  Mr.  Lincoln  made  upon  me 


40  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

when  I  first  saw  him  at  the  hotel  in  Charleston,  was 
very  slight.  He  had  the  appearance  of  a  good-natured, 
easy,  unambitious  man,  of  plain  good  sense,  and  unob- 
trusive in  his  manners.  At  that  time  he  told  me  no 
stories  and  perpetrated  no  jokes. 

I  must  leave  Mr.  Lincoln  now,  and  take  him  up 
again  when  he  shall  make  his  appearance  in  the  regu- 
lar order  of  this  history. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  or  intention  to  write  an  auto- 
biography, or  burden  this  narrative  with  matters  per- 
sonal to  myself,  only  so  far  as  to  give  to  the  reader  an 
idea  of  the  men  and  events  of  my  own  day  and  time. 

In  1835,  the  population,  as  shown  by  the  census  of 
that  year,  did  not  exceed  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand souls.  The  earlier  emigration  to  this  State  had 
been  mostly  from  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Kentucky,  which 
lay  to  the  East  and  South  of  Illinois.  A  portion, 
however,  were  from  Tennessee  and  the  Carolinas. 
This  made  the  principal  part  of  the  then  population  of 
Illinois,  with  the  exception  of  the  French  at  Kaskaskia 
and  other  French  posts,  with  quite  a  German  popula- 
tion in  St.  Clair  County,  and  a  few  Yankees  at  Chicago, 
and  some  more  sparsely  scattered  through  the  North- 
ern portion  of  the  State.  The  reader  will  perceive, 
from  the  above  general  view,  that  the  weight  of  popu- 
lation lay  in  the  Southern  portion  of  the  State.  I 
should  have  stated  that  a  colony  of  English  farmers, 
gentlemen  and  yeomanry,  at  quite  an  early  day,  had 
settled  Edwards  County,  which  name  they  gave  it, 
with  their  county  seat  at  Albion,  a  name  also  bestowed 
by  them. 

At  this  time  there  were  but  few  lawyers  in  the  State. 


LINDER  REMOVES  TO  ILLINOIS.  41 

The  most  eminent  were  Henry  Eddy  and  Jefferson 
Gatewood,  of  Shawneetown ;  James  Semple,  of  Alton ; 
Stephen  T.  Logan,  of  Springfield;  Thomas  Ford,  of 
Edwardsville;  Sidney  Breese,  of  Kaskaskia;  Samuel 
McRoberts,  of  Danville;  Jephtha  Hardin,  of  Shaw- 
neetown; David  J.  Baker,  of  Kaskaskia;  Justin  Bnt- 
terfield,  James  Collins  and  Giles  Spring,  of  Chicago; 
A.  P.  Field,  of  Vandalia;  Richard  Young,  of  the 
northern  portion  of  the  State;  William  Wilson,  Ed- 
win B.  Webb,  of  Carmi,  and  Nathaniel  Pope,  of  Kas- 
kaskia. There  are  doubtless  others  whom,  in  the  lapse 
of  time,  I  have  forgotten  or  overlooked,  who  are  enti- 
tled to  a  place  with  the  foregoing  eminent  gentlemen 
of  the  bar,  whose  names  shall  be  introduced  as  they 
occur  to  me,  and  properly  inserted  and  noticed  in  some 
appropriate  place  in  these  memoirs.  Early  in  the 
spring  of  1836  I  commenced  attending  the  various 
courts  in  the  fourth  judicial  circuit;  composed  of  some 
fifteen  or  sixteen  counties.  The  roads  being  very  bad, 
and  in  many  places  impassable  for  carriages,  the  judge 
and  all  the  lawyers  traveled  on  horseback,  which,  for 
me,  was  always  the  most  pleasant  mode  of  traveling — 
the  safest,  and  most  social  and  democratic,  except  trav- 
eling on  foot. 


42  LINDER'S  -REMINISCENCES. 


JUSTIN  HAKLAK 


]HERE  is  no  "profession  or  body  of  men  that 
are  happier  or  more  respectable  than  circuit 
court  lawyers.  Especially  was  it  the  case  in 
the  early  settlement  of  Illinois.  The  lawyers  who 
went  the  circuit  at  the  time  were,  Orlando  B.  Ficklin, 
prosecuting  attorney,  and  since  representative  in  Con- 
gress; A.  C.  French,  Hazlerigg,  Aaron  Shaw,  E.  B. 
Webb,  George  Webb,  father  of  E.  B.  Webb,  John 
Pearsons,  Samuel  McHoberts  and  myself,  Justin  Har- 
lan  being  our  presiding  judge  on  this  circuit — a  man 
for  whom  I  feel  the  most  profound  respect  and  deepest 
veneration.  He  was  a  man  of  the  highest  order  of  tal- 
ents, and  although  his  learning  was  not  what  is  called 
-iberal,  yet  he  was  a  profound,  well-read  and  able  law- 
yer, and  as  honest  and  impartial  in  the  discharge  of 
his  judicial  functions  as  the  day  is  long.  When  not  on 
the  bench,  he  was  a  plain  unostentatious  gentleman, 
who  eschewed  all  vainglorious  show  or  parade.  His 
manner  and  walk  and  conversation  did  not  say,  as  oth- 
ers I  have  known  did,  "  here  goes  your  judge;  keep  at 
a  respectful  distance,  all  ye  of  the  tiers,"  etc.,  "  and  all 
above  come  and  do  homage."  No  man  entertained 
a  profounder  contempt  for  all  upstarts  and  toadies. 
When  on  the  road,  in  the  tavern,  or  at  the  dinner-table, 


JUSTIN  HAKLAN.  43 

the  judge  and  his  lawyers  were  on  a  footing  of  perfect 
equality,  but  when  on  the  bench  he  laid  aside  all 
levity,  giving  his  whole  attention  to  the  case  under 
consideration,  paying  the  same  attention  to  the  junior 
that  he  did  to  the  senior  members  of  the  bar.  There 
was  a  period  of  some  four  or  five  years  that  he  was 
not  on  the  bench,  when  he  and  I  were  often  retained 
together  in  the  same  case.  Our  intercourse  was  of  the 
most  genial  and  pleasant  character,  and  our  friendship 
has  grown  with  our  age,  till  it  has  become  crystalized 
and  insoluble. 


44:  LENDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JEPHTHA  HARDEST. 


jlHE  first  court  that  I  attended  in  the  spring  of 
1836,  was  at  Lawrenceville,  in  Lawrence  coun- 
ty. It  seemed  that  some  good  genius  attended 
me,  for  I  got  into  almost  immediate  practice  wherever 
I  went,  which  increased  from  year  to  year  until  I  quit 
the  circuit.  From  Lawrenceville  we  went  to  Mt. 
Carmel;  from  there  to  Carmi,  where  we  often  met  with 
lawyers  from  Shawneetown  circuit — such  as  Gatewood, 
Eddy,  Mapes,  Samuel  Marshall,  and  William  H.  Stick- 
ney,  now  of  Chicago.  But  let  me  not  forget  to  make 
especial  mention  of  my  distinguished  friend,  Jephtha 
Hardin,  whom  we  frequently  met  at  this  court.  He 
was  a  brother  of  the  distinguished  Benjamin  Hardin, 
of  whom  I  have  spoken  in  a  former  part  of  these  me- 
moirs. He  reminded  me  very  much  of  his  brother 
Ben,  in  looks  and  disposition.  Of  course  he  was  not 
the  equal  of  Ben,  but  not  greatly  his  inferior. 

Jephtha  Hardin,  like  his  brother  Ben,  of  Kentucky, 
had  a  very  good  opinion  of  himself.  Finding  that  I 
had  been  personally  acquainted  with  his  brother  Ben, 
he  seemed  somewhat  anxious  to  know  what  opinion  I 
entertained  of  him.  I  told  him  Hardin  was  an  able 


JEPHTHA  HARDIST.  45 

lawyer,  so  regarded  by  all  who  knew  him — exceedingly 
sarcastic,  as  I  had  a  good  right  to  know ;  that  I  had 
felt  the  merciless  inflictions  of  his  coarse  satire  full 
many  a  time,  and  that  I  was  even  yet  sore  in  the  re- 
membrance thereof;  that  as  he  was  almost  the  coun- 
terpart of  his  brother  in  physical  and  mental  stature — 
being  large  and  ungainly  in  size  and  coarse  in  speech 
—I  was  only  sorry  that  there  was  no  case  in  court 
where  we  were  on  opposite  sides,  that  I  might  liqui- 
date the  debt  I  owed  to  the  Hardin  family. 

"The  thing,  by  G— d,"  said  he,  "of  "all  others  I 
most  desire.  Well,"  added  he,  "  there  is  a  case  of 
hog-stealing  here.  I  know  the  defendant.  I  will  see 
the  young  man  who  is  defending,  and  get  him  to  let 
me  assist  him.  You  must  see  the  State's  Attorney, 
and  become  his  sole  prosecutor,  and  I'll  be  d — d  if  I 
don't  give  you  the  worst  dressing  down  you  ever  had 
in  your  life." 

The  matter  was  not  difficult  to  arrange,  either  with 
the  young  man  or  the  State's  Attorney.  So  into  the  case 
we  went,  after  the  evidence  was  through,  which  was 
very  strong  against  the  accused.  I  opened  with  a 
plain  statement  of  the  facts  and  the  law,  telling  the 
jury  that  the  most  they  would  have  to  do  would  be  to 
agree  upon  the  time  he  should  serve  in  the  peniten- 
tiary, but  I  would  take  the  liberty  to  tell  them  that 
the  accused  would  be  defended  by  the  distinguished 
Jephtha  Hardin,  of  Shawneetown,  brother  to  the  dis- 
tinguished Ben  Hardin,  of  Kentucky,  of  world-wide 
renown,  who,  being  scarcely  less  distinguished  than  his 
brother,  proposed  to  add  new  lustre  to  his  laurels  by 
the  castigation  he  was  going  to  give  me.  I  gave  a  brief 


46  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

statement  of  the  fact  that  I  had  challenged  him  to  the 
combat,  for  the  purpose  of  paying  off'  a  debt  I  owed  to 
the  Hardin  family.  He  immediately  rose  and  replied 
to  me  at  considerable  length  and  with  marked  bit- 
terness, and  seemed  unwilling  to  give  me  credit  for 
a  very  moderate  share  of  ability.  lie  succeeded  in 
getting  off  some  pretty  good  laughs  at  rny  expense. 
When  he  closed  and  it  was  my  turn  to  reply,  the  court 
adjourned  to  dinner.  During  the  recess  the  circum- 
stance of  our  legal  duel  became  known  to  everybody, 
so  that  at  the  meeting  of  the  court  I  had  a  full  house, 
and  quite  a  number  of  ladies  to  grace  the  occasion.  I 
never  entertained  the  least  doubt  of  getting  the  better 
of  him.  I  was  not  bitter,  for  indeed  I  entertained  none 
but  the  kindest  feelings  toward  Judge  Hardin ;  but  I  in- 
dulged in  many  a  ludicrous  comparison,  and  drew  from 
the  crowd  the  most  uproarious  laughter;  and  when  I 
was  about  closing,  turning  to  Judge  Ilardin,  I  said, 
"  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  I  have  now  settled  with  the 
Hardin s  in  full  the  debt  I  owed."  "But  I  have  not 
with  you,  by  God,  sir,"  observed  Hardin,  in  quite 
.an  audible  voice,  which  caused  everybody  to  laugh 
to  the  splitting  ot  their  sides.  I  went  on  to  say, 
after  the  crowd  had  become  quiet,  "  Gentlemen  of 
the  jury,  you  may  now  take  leave  of  your  old  and 
distinguished  friend,  Jephtha  Hardin ;  his  face  you'll 
see  no  more;  the  star  that  shone  with  undimmed  lus- 
tre has  disappeared  from  its  place  in  the  heavens,  but 
another  shall  take  its  place,  of  brighter  sheen  and 
more  resplendent  lustre."  I  sat  down,  leaving  the 
crowd  enjoying  a  hearty  laugh,  and  friend  Jephtha 
in  a  terrible  bad  passion.  We  parted,  however,  good 


JEPHTHA  HARDHST.  47 

friends,  though  I  have  never  seen  him  since;  but  I 
will  do  him  the  justice  to  say  that  he  was  a  man  of 
kind  disposition,  great  tenderness  of  heart,  and  emi- 
nently social. 

I  will  next  give  some  very  amusing  and  interesting 
anecdotes  of  "  Old  Jephtha,"  and  then  take  up  some 
other  distinguished  man  of  that  day,  whose  history 
will  not  be  uninteresting  to  the  present  generation. 


48  LENDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


THE  HAEDIN  FAMILY. 


1WILL  now  relate  some  interesting  anecdotes 
illustrative  of  the  character  and  peculiarities 
of  my  friend,  Jephtha  Hard  in,  the  half  brother 
of  Ben  Hardin.  of  Kentucky.  But  as  my  readers 
doubtless  are  not  as  well  acquainted  with  the  Hardin 
family  as  I  am,  I  will  take  occasion  here  to  say  that 
they  were  the  most  distinguished  family  of  Kentucky. 
They  were  a  race  of  -giants,  physically  and  intellectu- 
ally. Ben  Ilardin  was  the  most  distinguished  of  the 
family,  not  only  as  a  lawyer  but  as  an  advocate.  His 
wit  and  humor  were  scarcely  inferior  to  that  of  Cur- 
ran.  "When  in  Congress,  where  he  served  for  some 
thirteen  or  fourteen  years,  everybody — even  Randolph 
—  acknowledged  his  prowess.  Randolph  compared 
him  to  a  coarse  kitchen  butcher-knife  whetted  upon  a 
brick-bat.  The  late  General  Thornton,  of  Shelby 
county,  Illinois,  who  knew  him  well,  and  who  lived  in, 
Washington  at  the  time  Hardin  was  a  member  of 
Congress,  told  me  that  when  it  was  known  that  he 
was  going  to  address  the  House  of  Representatives, 
he  could  gather  the  largest  audience  of  any  member 
of  the  House;  not  even  Randolph  or  Clay  could 
gather  a  larger.  He  said,  when  it  was  known  that 


THE  HARDIN  FAMILY.  49 

Hardin  was  going  to  speak,  lie  has  seen  negroes  and 
boys  running  along  the  streets  and  avenues  of  Wash- 
ington crying  at  the  top  of  their  voices,  "  Hardin  has 
got  the  floor!  Hardin  has  got  the  floor!  Hardin  has 
got  the  floor!"  and  in  less  than  no  time  the  streets 
would  be  filled  with  hacks  and  every  sort  of  vehicle, 
carrying  the  eager  crowd  to  the  Capitol  to  hear  one 
of  Kentucky's  rarest  and  most  gifted  sons  address  the 
House  of  representatives. 

The  late  lamented  John  J.  Hardin,  of  Illinois,  the 
son  of  Gen.  Martin  D.  Hardin,  of  Frankfort,  Ky., 
Mras  a  near  relative  of  Ben's.  All  the  Wickliifes, 
from  Charles  A.  down,  had  Hardin  blood  in  their 
veins,  and  were  all  distinguished  for  their  talents. 
.My  opinion  is,  that  General  John  J.  Hardin,  of  whom 
I  have  already  spoken,  who  fell  fighting  at  Buena 
Vista,  under  General  Taylor,  was  not  inferior  to  either 
Lincoln  or  Douglas.  I  knew  him  well,  and  he  and 
Lincoln  and  Douglas  and  myself  served  in  the  Legist 
lature  of  Illinois  in  1836  and  '37,  at  old  Yandalia. 

I  have  now  given  the  reader  as  good  an  idea  of  the 
Hardin  family  as  it  is  in  my  power  to  do.  I  shall, 
therefore,  return  for  a  short  period  to  my  old  friend, 
"  Jep."  I  have  already  said  that  lie  was  eminently  so- 
cial. I  will  add  that  he  was  garrulous — the  never-fail- 
ing weakness  of  old  age.  Mr.  Stickney,  of  this  city, 
told  me  that  on  one  occasion  they  slept  together  in  the 
same  bed  at  a  hotel,  and  Hardin  talked  him  to  sleep, 
recounting  the  scenes  of  his  early  life,  and  he  supposed 
he  had  slept  about  two  hours  and  awoke,  and  found 
Hardin  rattling  away,  perfectly  unconcerned  as  to 
whether  Stickney  was  asleep  or  awake. 


50  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

He  and  one  Michael  Jones,  of  Shawneetown,  had  a 
deadly  feud,  and  Jones  threatened  that  if  he  outlived 
Hardin  he  would  dig  his  bones  up  out  of  the  grave 
and  hang  him  in  chains  on  a  tree  at  some  cross-roads 
in  Gallatin  county,  of  which  threat  Hardin  was  ap- 
prised ;  and  being  satisfied,  from  the  character  of  Jones, 
that  he  would  execute  it,  when  he  came  to  die  he  had 
a  clause  inserted  in  his  will  that  they  should  dig  his 
grave  fifteen  feet  deep,  and  fill  it  up  four  feet  above 
the  surface  of  the  earth  with  solid  masonry;  which  I 
understand  was  done. 

One  more  anecdote  in  regard  to  my  old  friend  Jeph- 
tha,  and  I  will  dismiss  him.  While  he  was  presiding 
as  judge  at  Shawneetown,  the  distinguished  Jefferson 
Gatewood,  of  whom  I  have  already  spoken,  with  whom 
Hardin  was  not  on  very  good  terms,  had  a  case  before 
him  in  which  the  Judge  ruled  against  him.  Gate- 
wood,  thinking  the  ruling  wrong,  turned  to  some 
brother  lawyer  and  in  an  undertone  (which  Hardin 
nevertheless  heard)  said,  "  I  will  elevate  this  case  and 
itake  it  out  of  the  hands  of  this  little  court."  Hardin, 
immediately  addressing  Gatewood,  said,  "  What  is 
.that  you  say,  Jeffy  Gatewood — did  you  say  little  court? 
You,  Jeffy  Gatewood,  say  little  court?  I'll  show  you 
whether  this  is  a  little  court  or  not!  I'll  fine  you,  and 
send  you  to  jail  into  the  bargain,  sir!  Clerk,  enter  a 
'fine  of  fifty  dollars  against  him!  " 

By  this  time  the  great  drops  of  sweat,  as  big  as 
beads,  were  rolling  down  Gatewood's  forehead;  he  rose 
to  his  feet  and  undertook  to  explain.  Hardin  said 
-"  Sit  down,  Jeffy,  the  court  will  hear  no  explanation 
from  you.  You  say  little  court !  Clerk,  enter  a  fine 


THE  HAEDIN  FAMILY.  51 

of  fifty  dollars  more  against  him;  I'll  show  you  how 
little  a  court  this  is.  I'll  thrash  you,  Jeffy,  aud  you 
know  I  can  do  it.  Sheriff,  adjourn  court  till  after  din- 
ner." 

After  the  Judge  had  eaten  a  good  hearty  dinner  of 
roast  turkey  and  other  accompaniments,  he  opened 
court  at  2  o'clock.  Being  in  excellent  humor,  he  remit- 
ted Gatewood's  fine,  and  proceeded  with  business  as 
usual.  I  am  informed  that  Gatewood  never  again  in- 
timated that  Hardin's  court  was  a  little  court.  A.  P. 
Field,  a  lawyer  at  that  time  of  great  distinction,  who 
was  present  on  the  occasion,  and  from  whom  I  gath- 
ered the  foregoing  facts,  told  me  that  in  all  his  life 
he  never  witnessed  such  an  amusing  and  ludicrous 
scene. 

My  dear  reader,  if  I  have  wearied  you  with  the  ac- 
count I  have  given  you  of  my  old  friend  Jeptha,  at- 
tribute it  to  an  old  man's  love  of  gossip,  as  I  shall 
now  dismiss  him  from  these  pages,  hoping  I  have  said 
nothing  that  will  give  you  a  bad  opinion  of  him ;  for 
really  he  was  a  very  good  and  an  exceedingly  kind- 
hearted  man,  and  would  cry  like  a  child  at  a  picture 
of  sorrow  or  distress.  Farewell,  Jephtha!  peace  to  thy 
ashes!  "Requiescat  in  pace" 


LIBRARY     ^-— 

nc  ill  I 


52  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


HEKRY  EDDY. 


of  the  most  distinguished  men  of  that 
day,  as  a  lawyer,  was  Henry  Eddy,  of  Shaw- 
neetown.  I  first  met  him  at  Carmi,  in  1836. 
I  also  met  him  at  the  Supreme  Court  repeatedly.  He 
was  employed  in  the  largest  cases  that  came  up  from 
Southern  Illinois.  When  he  addressed  the  court,  he 
elicited  the  most  profound  attention.  He  was  a  sort 
of  walking  law  library.  He  never  forgot  anything 
that  he  ever  knew,  no  matter  whether  it  was  law,  poe- 
try or  belles  lettres.  He  often  would  quote  whole 
pages  of  Milton  and  Shakspeare,  when  he  felt  in  a 
genial  mood.  He  was  the  son-in-law  of  John  Mar- 
shall, of  •  Shawneetown,  president  of  the  Shawnee- 
town  bank,  and  brother-in-law  of  Major  Samuel  Mar- 
shall, one  of  the  most  talented  men  in  the  State  of 
Illinois.  I  served  a  term  in  the  legislature  of  Illinois 
with  JEddy,  in  1846  and  '7,  and  we  roomed  together 
during  the  whole  of  that  winter. 

On  one  occasion  Eddy  got  very  "  high,"  and  while 
in  that  condition,  he  rose  in  the  House  and  made  a 
few  remarks,  and  it  became  obvious  to  us  all  that 
Eddy  was  not  in  a  fit  condition  at  that  time  to  address 
the  House.  Some  of  his  friends  who  sat  near  him 
whispered  to  him  and  advised  him  to  postpone  his 


HENBY  EDDY.  53 

remarks  till  the  next  day,  which  he  did.  That  night 
four  or  five  of  his  friends  got  together  and  determined 
to  have  some  fun  out  of  him,  and  we  concocted  this 
story,  which  each  one  of  us  was  to  tell  him  when  the 
others  were  not  present.  I  was  the  first  one  to  open 
the  dance,  next  morning,  when  Eddy  was  perfectly 
cool  and  at  himself.  I  went  to  him  with  great  gravity, 
with  sorrow  expressed  in  my  face  and  said,  "  Eddy,  you 
mortified  your  friends  very  much  on.  yesterday,  in 
attempting  to  speak  whe*n  you  were  so  much  intoxica- 
ted." He  confessed  that  he  had  been  overtaken,  and 
was  very  much  intoxicated.  He  said  that  he  had  been 
to  a  saloon,  and  it  being  a  cold  morning,  had  taken  a 
stiff  horn  of  "  Tom  and  Jerry,"  which,  when  he  got 
into  the  warm  Hall  of  Representatives,  close  to  the 
stove,  flew  to  his  head,  and  he  had  really  no  recollec- 
tion of  what  he  had  said. 

"Ah,  but  Eddy,  there  lies  the  rub.  You  cursed 
and  swore  like  a  trooper." 

""What  did  I  say,  Linder?  Do  you  remember  the 
words?" 

"  Yes,  Eddy,  I  do,  and  I  shall  never  forget  them. 
You  said,  '  Mr.  Speaker,  this  subject  by  G— d,  sir,  is 
very  far  from  being  exhausted,  and  I'll  be  G— d  d — d, 
if  I  don't  intend  to  ventilate  it  myself,'  and  at  that 
point  we  got  you  by  the  coat  tail  and  pulled  you  into 
your  seat." 

"O  !  my  God  !"  said  he,  "is  that  so?  As  soon  as 
the  House  meets,  I  will  make  my  apology.  I  never 

did  such  a  thing  before,  and  but  for  the  d d  '  Tom 

and  Jerry  '  would  not  have  done  it  then." 

The  rest  of  our  conspirators  all  met  him,  and,  seri- 


5-i  LINDEB'S  REMINISCENCES. 

atim,  told  him  the  same  story ;  and  he  actually  started 
to  the  House  to  make  his  apology,  but  meeting  with 
Rheman,  a  member  from  Yandalia,  on  his  way  to  the 
House,  told  him  what  he  was  going  to  do.  Rheman, 
not  being  in  our  plot,  told  him  that  he  was  present  and 
heard  what  he  said,  and  that  he  was  perfectly  respect- 
ful, and  that  there  was  not  a  word  of  profanity  in 
what  he  had  said.  Eddy  said,  "I  smell  it  now;  the 
boys  have  laid  a  trap  for  me,  but  they  haven't  caught 
me  this  time."  •• 


THE  LEGISLATURE  OF  1836-7.  55 


THE  LEGISLATUEE  OF  1836-7. 


LINCOLN — DOUGLAS. 

promised  the  reader  to  introduce  other 
names  into  these  memoirs,  I  will  now  carry  him 
to  the  legislature  of  Illinois  of  1836-7,  then 
held  at  Vandalia,  of  which  body,  to-wit:  the  House  of 
Representatives,  Abraham  Lincoln,  Stephen  A.Doug- 
las, James  Shields,  Archy  Williams,  Ninian  Edwards 
and  John  J.  Hardin,  with  many  other  men  that  have 
since  distinguished  themselves  in  our  country's  history, 
together  with  your  humble  servant,  were  members. 
This  was  my  second  meeting  with  Abraham  Lincoln, 
but  far  from  being  my  last.  I  should  have  mentioned 
that  Jesse  K.  Dubois  was  also  a  member  of  that  body 
at  that  time.  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  Robert 
Wilson,  of  Sangamon  county,  who  was  also  a  member 
of  that  body  at  that  time,  at  the  unveiling  of  Lincoln's, 
statute. 

He  had  preserved  a  list  of  the  names  of  the  mem- 
bers of  both  Houses,  and  had  kept  hi)nself  informed 
as  to  what  had  become  of  them,  and  he  told  me  that 
of  the  one  hundred  and  five  members,  there  Mrere  only 
fifteen  of  us  living.  Time  makes  sad  havoc  of  us  in 


56  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

this  world;  he  comes  along  with  his  scythe,  mowing  us 
down,  and  pays  no  attention  to  talents  or  distinction. 

I  here  had  an  opportunity  of  measuring  the  intel- 
lectual stature  of  Abraham  Lincoln  better  than  any  I 
had  previously  possessed.  He  was  then  about  twenty- 
seven  years  old — my  own  age.  Douglas  was  four  years 
our  junior,  consequently,  he  could  not  have  been  over 
twenty-three  years  old,  yet  he  was  a  very  ready  and 
expert  debater,  even  at  that  early  period  of  his  life.  He 
and  Lincoln  were  very  frequently  pitted  against  each 
other,  being  of  different  politics.  They  both  com- 
manded marked  attention  and  respect  from  the  House. 
I  dislike  to  draw  any  parallel  or  comparison  between 
these  two  men,  who  afterwards  became  so  famous  and 
distinguished  in  their  country's  history. 

This  body  was  largely  democratic,  and  it  was  at 
this  session  they  elected  me  Attorney-General  of  the 
State  of  Illinois.  My  competitor  was  Benjamin  Bond, 
of  Clinton  county,  111.,  also  a  member  of  the  same 
body  with  myself.  I  did  not  serve  out  the  whole  of 
my  time  in  the  legislature,  it  being  necessary  that  I 
should  assume  the  duties  of  the  new  office  to  which  I 
had  been  elected;  the  law  at  that  time  requiring  the 
Attorney-General  to  perform  the  duties  of  a  district 
or  State's  attorney,  on  the  circuit  of  which  the  seat  of 
government,  Yandalia,  was  a  part.  I  therefore,  some- 
time in  February,  resigned  my  seat  and  met  the  court 
at  Edwardsville,  which  was  then  presided  over  by  his 
Honor,  Judge  Breese,  who,  I  am  happ}-  to  say,  is  still 
living  and  a  member  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State 
of  Illinois,  and  for  his  age,  one  of  the  best  preserved 
men,  physically  arid  mentally,  that  I  know  of  in  tli3 


THE  LEGISLATURE  OF  1836-7.  57 

whole  circle  of  my  acquaintances.  He  cannot  be  less 
than  eighty  years  of  age,  and  yet  he  is  one  of  the  most 
active  and  laborious  members  of  the  court.  It  was  a 
cold  winter  when  I  met  Judge  Breese  atEdwardsville. 
We  traveled  together  on  the  circuit  on  horseback,  our 
road  lying  down  the  Mississippi  as  far  as  Kaskaskia. 

It  was  on  this  trip  that  I  became  acquainted  with 
several  gentlemen  who  have  since  made  their  mark  in 
the  history  of  Illinois,  amongst  whom  were  Adam 
Snyder,  the  father  of  the  present  Judge  William  Sny- 
der,  of  St.  Clair  Bounty;  Judge  Koerner,  then  but  a 
mere  novice  at  the  bar;  David  J.  Baker,  Governor 
Reynolds  and  others.  I  should  also  have  mentioned 
Joseph  Gillespie;  and  I  will  take  occasion  here  to  say 
that  a  better  man  and  sounder  lawyer  it  has  never 
been  my  good  fortune  to  know.  I  will  also  say  en. 
passant,  that  it  was  on  this  trip  I  first  became 
acquainted  with  the  late  Nathanial  Buckmaster,  who 
was  then  sheriff  of  Madison  county,  and  a  more  genial 
and  whole-souled  man  it  wrould  be  hard  to  find. 

I  ought  not  to  forget,  in  this  connection,  to  mention 
my  old  friend,  Govenor  William  Kinney,  a  man  of 
great  native  wit,  but  of  very  little  learning,  as  I  shall 
illustrate  by  a  short  anecdote.  In  writing,  when  he 
had  occasion  to  use  the  personal  pronoun  I,  he  always 
used  the  little  "  i,"  and  being  asked  on  one  occasion 
why  he  did  not  use  the  capital,  he  replied,  "  that  Gov- 
ernor Edwards,  who  was  his  superior  in  office  (he, 
Kinney,  being  only  Lieutenant  Governor),  had  used 
up  all  the  capital  I's,  leaving  him  only  the  small  'i '." 

The  wit  in  this  reply  consists  in  this,  that  although 
Governor  Edwards  was  one  of  the  most  talented  men 


58  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

in  the  nation,  yet,  at  the  same  time,  lie  was  one  of  the 
vainest  and  most  egotistical. 

o 

I  shall  not  linger  longer  at  present  on  this  circuit. 
Let  it  suffice  to  say,  that  Judge  Breese  and  I  enjoyed 
ourselves  greatly  while  we  were  together  on  the  circuit. 

I  did  not  complete  my  term  of  office  as  Attorney- 
General,  but  resigned  before  the  two  years  had  expired, 
and  returned  to  Coles  county,  where  I  continued  to 
reside  and  practice  my  profession  on  that  circuit  until 
1860,  when  I  removed  with  my  family  to  the  city  of 
Chicago. 

BRILLIANT   RAILROAD    SCHEMES — ILLINOIS  AND    MICHIGAN 
CANAL. 

The  years  183G  and  '37  were  a  sort  of  formation 
•period;  the  starting  point  of  many  great  men  who  dis- 
tinguished themselves  in  the  subsequent  history  of 
Illinois.  My  readers  will  perhaps  be  astonished  when 
I  say  to  them  that  at  that  time  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not 
give  promise  of  being  the  first  man  in  Illinois,  as  he 
afterwards  became.  He  made  a  good  many  speeches 
in  the  legislature,  mostly  on  local  subjects.  A  close 
observer,  however,  could  riot  fail  to  see  that  the  tall, 
six-footer, 'with  his  homely  logic,  clothed  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  humbler  classes,  had  the  stuff  in  him  to 
make  a  man  of  mark. 

At  that  time  we  had  some  very  exciting  questions 
before  the  Legislature.  It  was  at  that  session  that  the 
subject  of  internal  improvements  became  the  all-ab- 
sorbing question  of  the  day.  There  was  not  a  railroad 
at  that  time  in  the  State  of  lilinois;  nor  was  there  any 
road  in  Indiana  touching  the  line  of  our  State.  I 


THE  LEGISLATURE  OF  1836-7.  59 

think  there  was  a  short  road,  either  constructed  or  be- 
ing constructed,  from  Madison,  on  the  Ohio  river,  to 
Indianapolis.  We  ran  perfectly  wild  on  the  subject 
of  internal  improvements.  A  map  of  that  scheme, 
with  the  various  routes  along  which  our  contemplated 
roads  were  to  run,  would  be  somewhat  amusing  to  look 
at,  at  this  day.  I  must,  however,  here  remark  that 
some  of  the  routes  were  exceedingly  well  chosen.  I 
will  only  mention  one  or  two:  the  Illinois  Central,  the 
Chicago  and  Galena,  and  the  great  .Northern  Cross- 
Railroad,  which  was  to  start  somewhere  on  the  Mis- 
sissippi, run  through  Decatur,  and  on  by  the  way  of 
Danville  to  the  Indiana  State  line. 

These  are  hardly  a  tithe  of  the  roads  that  were 
mapped  out  and  authorized  to  be  built.  Every  mem- 
ber wanted  a  road  to  his  county  town — a  great  many 
of  them  got  one;  and  those  counties  through  which 
no  road  was  authorized  to  be  constructed  were  to  be 
compensated  in  money;  which  was  to  be  obtained  by 
a  loan  from  Europe,  or— God  knows  where. 

The  enthusiastic  friends  of  the  measure,  such  as  John 
Hogan,  one  of  the  members  from  Alton,  an  Irishman, 
who  had  been  a  Methodist  preacher,  and  who  was 
quite  a  fluent  and  interesting  speaker,  maintained  that 
instead  of  their  being  any  difficulty  in  obtaining  a  loan 
of  the  fifteen. or  twenty  millions  authorized  to  be  bor- 
rowed, our  bonds  would  go  like  hot  cakes,  and  be 
sought  for  by  the  Rothschilds  and  Baring  Brothers. 
and  others  of  that  stamp,  and  that,  the  premium 
which  we  would  obtain  upon  them  would  range  from 
fifty  to  one  hundred  per  cent.,  and  that  the  premium 
itself  would  be  sufficient  to  construct  most  of  the 


60  LENDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

important  works,  leaving  the  principal  sum  to  go  into 
our  treasury,  and  leave  the  people  free  from  taxation 
fbr  years  to  come. 

The  law  authorized  these  works  to  be  constructed  by 
the  State,  without  the  intervention  of  corporations  or 
any  individual  interest  whatever.  Commissioners  were 
to  be  appointed  to  go  to  Europe  and  borrow  money  on 
our  State  bonds. 

My  recollection  now  is,  that  Moses  Eawlings,  of 
Shawneetown,  John  D.  Whiteside,  Governor  Reynolds, 
and  General  William  F.  Thornton,  the  last  mentioned 
of  whom  represented  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  canal, 
with  their  satchels  full  of  State  bonds,  posted  off  to 
London  and  Hamburg,  to  negotiate  the  loan;  and  my 
impression  now  is,  that  General  Thornton  was  the 
only  one  of  them  who  was  able  to  sell  the  bonds  at  par, 
and  he,  by  some  arrangement  that  he  made  to  have 
the  money  paid  in  English  sovereigns  at  New  York 
city,  realized  a  veiy  handsome  premium. 

The  great  fault  in  the  system  was  discovered  when  it 
was  too  late.  It  was  found  that  when  nobody  has  any 
individual  interest  in  a  thing  like  this— nothing  to  lose, 
and  nothing  to  gain  but  their  salary — the  public  inter- 
ests always  suifer. 

I  think  some  fifteen  or  eighteen  millions  were  bor- 
rowed, and  of  that  sum,  if  the  State  derived  any  bene- 
fit from  it,  it  was  that  portion  which  was  applied  to 
the  Illinois  and  Michigan  canal.  If  any  man  deserves 
more  credit  than  another  for  the  completion  of  that 
canal,  it  is  Col.  E.  D.  Taylor,  now  of  LaSalle,  111.,  the 
present  owner  of  the  coal  mines  in  that  vicinity.  He 
procured  some  dozen  or  more  men  of  carntal  in  the 


THE  LEGISLATURE  OF  1836-7.  61 

city  of  Chicago,  who,  with  himself,  guaranteed  the  con- 
struction of  the  work,  and  thereupon  the  English  capi- 
talists pulled  out  their  money,  and  the  work  went 
ahead. 

As  to  the  railroads,  I  suppose  everybody  knows  that 
they  were  not  built;  here  and  there  through  the  State 
you  could  find  some  gradings  and  fillings,  but  never 
a  tie  nor  rail  was  laid  upon  them  by  the  State.  They 
remained  as  monuments  of  legislative  folly.  The 
State  has  sold  some  of  them,  I  believe,  and  perhaps 
all,  for  a  mere  song,  to  the  companies  which  have  con- 
structed roads  on  the  routes  laid  out  by  the  State. 
Perhaps  I  ought  to  beg  pardon  of  the  reader  for  de- 
taining him  so  long  on  these  dry  statistics. 

It  was  only  a  few  years  when  the  whole  system  went 
up  like  a  balloon.  I  supported  the  measure,  with 
many  others,  and  am  willing  now  to  take  my  share  of 
the  blame  which  shouM  attach  to  those  who  supported 
it.  We  were  all  young  and  inexperienced  men.  Lin- 
coln and  Douglas,  with  myself,  voted  for  this  Internal 
Improvement  Bill.  My  recollection  now  is  that  Gen- 
eral John  J.  Hard  in,  of  Jacksonville,  took  a  decided 
stand  against  it,  and  predicted  it's  fate  with  an  accu- 
racy that  looks  to  me  now -almost  like  prophecy. 

REMOVAL    OF    THE    CAPITAL    TO    SPRINGFIELD. 

At  that  session  (I  mean  1836  and  '7),  the  question 
came  up  as  to  the  removal  of  the  seat  of  government 
from  Yandalia  to  Springfield.  Springfield  had  nine 
members.  They  were  called  the  "  long  nine,"  for 
there  was  not  one  of  them  who  was  not  over  six  feet 


62  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

liigli.  The  scat  of  government  was  removed,  by  law, 
to  Springfield,  and.it  has  been  hinted  that  the  "nine" 
traded  a  little  to  accomplish  this  result,  but  I  vouch 
for  nothing  of  the  kind. 

At  the  call-session  in  the  summer  of  1837,  of  which 
body  I  was  not  then  a  member,  General  Lee  D.  Ewing 
had  been  elected  to  fill  some  vacancy  which  had 
occurred,  for  the  express  purpose  of  repealing  the  law 
removing  the  seat  of  government  to  Springfield.  I 
should  have  said  that  he  was  the  representative  from 
Fayette  county,  of  which  Vandalia  is  the  county 
seat. 

General  Ewing  at  that  time  was  a  man  of  consider- 
able notoriety,  popularity  and  talents.  He  had  been 
a  senator  in  Congress  from  Illinois,  and  had  filled 
various  State  offices  in  his  time.  He  was  a  man  of 
elegant  manners,  great  personal  courage,  and  would 
grace  either  the  saloons  of  fashion  or  the  Senate 
chamber  at  Washington. 

The  Legislature  opened  its  special  session  (I  was 
there  as  a  spectator),  and  General  Ewing  sounded  the 
tocsin  of  war.  lie  said  that  "  the  arrogance  of  Spring- 
field— its  presumption  in  claiming  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment— was  not  to  be  endured;  that  the  law  had  been 
passed  by  chicanery  and  trickery;  that  the  Springfield 
delegation  had  sold  out  to  the  internal  improvement 
men,  and  had  promised  their  support  to  every  measure 
that  would  gain  them  a  vote  to  the  law  removing  the 
seat  of  government."  He  said  many  other  things  cut- 
ting and  sarcastic.  Lincoln  was  chosen  by  his  col- 
leagues as  their  champion,  to  reply  to  him;  and  I  want 
to  say  here  that  this  was  the  first  time  that  I  began  to 


THE  LEGISLATURE  OF  1836-7.  63 

conceive  a  very  high  opinion  of  the  talents  and  per- 
sonal courage  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  retorted  upon 
E wing  with  great  severity;  denouncing  his  insinua- 
tions imputing  corruption  to  him  and  his  colleagues, 
and  paying  hack  with  usury  all  that  Ewing  had  said, 
when  everybody  thought  and  believed  that  he  was  dig- 
ging his  own  grave;  for  it  was  known  that  Ewing 
would  not  quietly  pocket  any  insinuations  that  would 
degrade  him  personally. 

I  recollect  his  reply  to  Lincoln  well.  After  address- 
ing the  Speaker,  he  turned  to  the  Sangamon  delega- 
tion, who  all  sat  in  the  same  portion  of  the  house,  and 
said  : 

"  Gentlemen,  have  you  no  other  champion  than  this 
coarse  and  vulgar  fellow  to  bring  into  the  lists  against 
me?  Do  you  suppose  that  I  will  condescend  to  break 
a  lance  with  your  low  and  obscure  colleague?" 

Think  of  such  a  remark  made  to  a  man  who  was 
afterward  to  be  President  of  the  United  States — to 
whom  monuments  were  to  be  erected,  and  of  whom 
hundreds  of  biographies  were  to  be  written,  and  who 
was  to  strike  the  fetters  from  four  millions  of  slaves  ! 
I  guess  that  if  Ewing  could  have  known  it  then,  it 
would  have  greatly  modified  and  softened  his  remarks; 
but  who  could  see  in  the  ungainly  and  uneducated 
man,  the  man  who  was  to  make  himself  thereafter  sec- 
ond only  to  George  Washington,  the  Father  of  his 
Country,  whom,  in  honesty,  patriotism  and  sterling 
integrity,  he  very  much  resembled. 

We  were  all  very  much  alarmed  for  fear  there  would 
be  a  personal  conflict  between  Ewing  and  Lincoln. 
It  was  confidently  believed  that  a  challenge  must 


64:  EINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

pass  between  them,  but  the  friends  on  both  sides  took 
it  in  hand,  and  it  was  settled  without  anything  serious 
growing  out  of  it. 

Ewing  did  not  accomplish  the  purpose  for  which  he 
was  elected.  He  afterwards  filled  high  offices  under 
the  State  governments,  and  was  one  of  the  most  genial, 
social  and  amiable  of  men  that  I  have  ever  known. 
We  were  warm  personal  friends,  and  my  heart  now 
makes  a  pilgrimage  to  his  grave,  as  it  does  to  those  of 
Lincoln  and  Douglas,  and  a  host  of  others  who  have 
left  me  alone  with  another  generation. 

At  the  session  of  1836  and  '37,  there  were  men, 
some  of  whose  names  I  have  already  mentioned,  who 
became  greatly  distinguished  in  after  times.  I  shall 
not  forget  them,  and  shall,  in  my  subsequent  pages, 
try  to  do  justice  to  them. 


JAMES  SHIELDS.  65 


JAMES  SHIELDS. 


fiTIE  next  one  I  shall  take  up  will  be  General 
James  Shields,,  one  of  the  fifteen  survivors 
of  the  legislature  of  1836  and  '37.  General 
James  Shields  now  lives  in  the  State  of  Missouri. 
He  was  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office  at 
Washington,  under  President  Polk.  General  Shields 
was  a  native  of  Ireland.  He  was  appointed  by  Polk, 
during  the  progress  of  the  Mexican  war,  a  Brigadier- 
General,  and  was  at  the  battle  of  Cerro  Gordo,  where 
he  was  severely  wounded,  a  musket  ball  having  passed 
entirely  through  his  lungs.  His  Aid,  George  T.  M. 
Davis,  told  me  that  he  could  only  keep  warmth  in  his 
body  by  putting  him  between  two  blankets  and  getting 
in  with  him,  and  putting  his  two  naked  feet  to  his 
armpits.  He  fortunately  survived,  and  was  afterwards 
Senator  in  Congress  from  Illinois,  and  one  of  the 
Union  generals  in  the  late  rebellion.  In  1836  and  '37,  he 
was  Representative  from  Randolph  county,  Kaskaskia. 
The  reader  will  remember  that  before  he  became  very 
famous,  he  challenged  our  friend  Lincoln  to  fight  a 
duel.  Lincoln  accepted  the  challenge,  and  by  the 
advice  of  his  especial  friend  and  second,  Dr.  Merri- 
man,  he  chose  broadswords  as  the  weapons  witli  which 
to  fight.  Dr.  Merriman  being  a  splendid  swordsman, 
5 


66  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

trained  him  in  the  use  of  that  instrument,  which 
made  it  almost  certain  that  Shields  would  be  killed  or 
discomfited,  for  he  was  a  small,  short-armed  man, 
while  Lincoln  was  a  tall,  sinewy,  long-armed  man,  and 
as  stont  as  Hercules. 

They  went  to  Alton,  and  were  to  fight  on  the  neck 
of  land  between  the  Missouri  and  Mississippi  rivers, 
near  their  confluence.  John  J.  Hardin  hearing  of  the 
contemplated  duel,  determined  to  prevent  it,  and  has- 
tened to  'Alton,  with  all  imaginable  celerity,  where  he 
fell  in  with  the  belligerent  parties,  and  aided  by  some 
other  friends  of  both  Lincoln  and  Shields,  succeeded 
in  effecting  a  reconciliation. 

This  is  about  as  much  notice  as  I  intend  to  take  of 
General  Shields,  as  his  name  has  gone  into  history, 
where  abler  pens  than  mine  have  done  him  full  jus- 
tice. He  was  my  personal  and  political  friend,  and 
voted  for  and  helped  to  elect  me  Attorney-General, 
and  I  will  now  take  leave  of  him  by  saying  he  was  a 
warm-hearted  Irishman,  and  a  brave  and  gallant 
soldier. 

After  this  affair  between  Lincoln  and  Shields,  I  met 
Lincoln  at  the  Danville  court,  and  in  a  walk  we  took 
together,  seeing  him  make  passes  with  a  stick,  such  as 
are  made  in  the  broadsword  exercise,  I  was  induced  to 
ask  him  why  he  had  selected  that  weapon  with  which 
to  fight  Shields.  He  promptly  answered  in  that 
sharp,  ear-splitting  voice  of  his: 

"To  tell  you  the  truth,  Linder,  I  did  not  want  to  kill 
Shields,  and  felt  sure  that  I  could  disarm  him,  having 
had  about  a  month  to  leajn  the  broadsword  exercise; 
and  furthermore,  I  didn't  want  the  d — d  fellow  to  kill 


JAMES  SHIELDS.  67 

me,  which.  I  rather  think  he  would  have  done  if  we 
had  selected  .pistols." 

In  this  connection  I  want  to  say  that  I  never  knew 
but  one  man  who,  in  size,  personal  appearance  and 
his  style  and  manner  of  addressing  courts  and  juries, 
closely  resembles  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  that  is  our  distin- 
guished and  talented  townsman,  Leonard  Swett;  and 
in  saying  this  I  am  sure  that  I  do  no  injustice  to  Mr. 
Lincoln,  for  Mr.  Swett  is  an  eminent  and  distin- 
guished lawyer,  standing  at  the  head  of  the  bar  in  the 
city  of  Chicago  and  State  of  Illinois.  If  he  has  a 
superior,  I  have  not  the  pleasure  of  his  acquaintance. 


68  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JESSE  K.  DUBOIS. 


JFEEL  it  to  be  my  duty,  as  it  is  a  great  pleas- 
ure to  me,  to  introduce  to  the  notice  and 
attention  of  the  reader  rny  old  friend,  Jesse 
K.  Dubois,  now  of  Springfield,  Illinois,  late  Auditor 
of  the  State  of  Illinois,  who  in  1836  and  '37  was  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  leg- 
islature of  Illinois,  from  the  county  of  Lawrence. 

Ah!  Jesse,  when  I  think  of  you  my  heart  warms  and 
my  pulse  beats  faster;  and  though  I  may  not  give  you 
the  highest  niche  in  tha  temple  of  Fame,  yet  you  are 
enshrined  in  the  very  core  of  my  heart! 

My  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Dnbois  commenced  in 
1836,  at  Lawrenceville.  He  was  then  the  member- 
elect  from  the  county  of  Lawrence,  and  I  from  the 
county  of  Coles.  .1  was  attending  the  fall  session  of 
the  court  there.  Our  intimacy  commenced  at  that 
time,  and  our  friendship  has  continued  for  nearly  forty 
years;  and  it  has  grown  and  strengthened  with  our 
age.  When  I  first  saw  him  he  was  a  slim,  handsome 
young  man,  with  auburn  hair,  sky-blue  eyes,  with  the 
elegant  manners  of  a  Frenchman,  from  which  nation 
he  has  his  descent.  The  last  time  I  saw  him  was  at 
the  unveiling  of  Lincoln's  statue,  near  Springfield, 
where  he  made  the  opening  speech.  To  say  it  was  a 


JESSE  K.  DTJBOIS.  69 

good  speech  would  be  too  tame  an  expression  to  do 
him  justice;  it  was  a  magnificent  effort.  He  had  been 
the  leading  and  managing  man  in  the  construction  of 
Lincoln's  monument,  and  showed  from  whence  every 
dollar  came;  and  although  the  subject  was  rather  dry 
and  jejune,  he  made  it  interesting  by  the  manner 
and  style  of  his  delivery.  ••  He  is  a  man  of  spotless 
reputation,  and  if  any  man  who  has  known  him 
well  should  contradict  this  assertion,  old  as  I  am, 
while  I  might  not  go  a  hundred  miles  to  thrash  him, 
as  the  old  Ranger  Governor  once  said  of  a  man  whom 
he  did  not  like  very  well:  "I  wouldn't  shake  hands 
with  him  on  the  day  of  an  election  if  I  was  a  candi- 
date myself  for  office." 

Jesse  K.  Dubois  is  too  well  known  by  the  people  of 
this  State  to  need  any  further  mention,  on  my  part,  of 
his  claims  to  their  highest  respect.  I  should  like  to 
see  him  Governor  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  which  posi- 
tion he  would  no  doubt  fill  to  the  satisfaction  of  all, 
and  make  the  Governor's  mansion  -the  head-quarters 
of  all  honest  men  and  good  fellows. 

With  these  remarks  I  shall  leave  the  name  of  Jesse 
K.  Dubois  with  my  readers,  and  it  would  afford  me 
unqualified  delight  if  I  thought  these  memoirs  would 
have  merit  enough  to  carry  his  name  to  future  gene- 
rations. He  is  the  prince  of  good  fellows — a  man  with- 
out subtlety  or  guile;  devoted  to  his  friends,  and 
something  of  a  terror  to  his  enemies  and  all  dema- 
gogues. 


70  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JOHN  M.  PALMER 


[OE-THY  reader,  I  now  wish  to  introduce  to 
your  notice  a  man  who  was  not  a  member  of 
the  legislature  of  1836  and  '37,  but  to  whom 
I  wish  to  give  a  place  in  these  memoirs.  I  allude  to 
his  Excellency,  the  late  Governor  of  Illinois,  the  Hon. 
John  M.  Palmer.  My  acquaintance  with  him  com- 
menced in  1837  and  '38,  when  he  was  simply  probate 
justice  of  the  peace  of  Macoupin  county,  at  Carlin- 
ville,  111.  As  to  his  subsequent  career  as  General  in 
the  army  and  Governor  of  Illinois,  it  is  wholly  un- 
necessary to  speak,  for  the  historian  will  do  him  jus- 
tice. His  name  and  deeds  will  brighten  every  page 
upon  which  they  may  be  written. 


JOHN    A.    MoCLEKNAND.  71 


JOKST  A.  McOLEEKAND. 


|T  WILL  be  impossible  for  me  to  introduce  to 
your  notice  all  the  men  who  were  prominent  in 
the  legislature  of  1836  and  '37,  and  who 
became  famous  thereafter;  but  one  of  the  men  who 
figured  prominently  at  that  session  was  John  A. 
McClernand,  of  Shawneetown.  He  was  a  young  man 
of  great  fluency  of  speech  and  a  Democrat.  Governor 
Duncan  had  sent  a  message  to  the  two  Houses,  attack- 
ing General  Jackson  and  Mr.  Van  Buren,  which  part 
of  his  message  was  referred  to  a  select  committee,  of 
which  McClernand  was  chairman,  and  he  made  a  report 
thereon  to  the  House,  which  was  thought  by  his  friends 
to  be  an  able  one.  He  made  a  speech  on  the  intro- 
duction of  that  report  which  gave  him  considerable 
prestige  with  the  legislature.  Since  then  McCler- 
nand has  climbed  pretty  high  up  on  the  ladder  of  fame. 
He  was  a  Major-General  of  the  Union  forces  in  the  late 
rebellion,  and  was  appointed  by  the  administration  to 
lay  siege  to  Yicksburg,  but  was,  for  some  cause  or 
other,  superseded  by  General  Grant.  As  I  am  not 
writing  a  history  of  the  war,  which  has  been  written 
by  many  able  pens,  my  object  only  being  to  bring 
General  McClernand  before  the  eye  of  the  reader,  I 
will  only  add  that  he  was  at  the  battle  of  Shiloh,  and 


72  LIKDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

was  in  the  hottest  thereof,  and  behaved  with  great 
courage,  gallantry  and  skill. 

He  was  for  many  years  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  in  Congress,  from  the  Southern  part 
of  Illinois,  and  made  his  mark  in  that  body.  He  has 
since  been  Judge  of  the  Circuit  Court  of  Sangamon 
county.  I  should  have  said  that  many  years  ago  Gov- 
ernor Ford  appointed  him  his  Secretary  of  State,  in 
place  of  A.  P.  Field,  whom  he  intended  to  remove  by 
that  appointment.  Field  litigated  the  appointment  of 
McClernand,  and  it  came  before  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Illinois,  and  they  decided  in  favor  of  Field.  The  deci- 
sion was  delivered  by  Chief  Justice  William  Wilson, 
which  will  be  found  in  Scammon's  Reports. 

It  is  an  able  opinion,  but  evidently  erroneous,  and 
the  precedent  was  never  followed  by  any  subsequent 
action  of  the  government.  They  decided,  in  that  opin- 
ion, that  a  Governor  had  no  right  to  remove  a  Secre- 
tary of  State  appointed  by  his  predecessor.  It  was 
contrary  to  the  practice  of  the  general  government,  and 
was  evidently  wrong,  as  every  lawyer  now  acknowl- 
edges, and  was  made  by  a  court  politically  hostile  to 
Governor  Ford  and  John  A.  McClernand. 


SUPKEME  COURT  JUDGES.         73 


SUPREME  COURT  JUDGES. 


WILSON — SMITH — BEOWN — LOCKWOOD. 

jHE  court  was  then  composed  of  William  Wil- 
son, Chief  Justice,  Theophilus  Smith,  Thomas 
C.  Brown,  and  Samuel  Lockwood,  all  of  whom 
have  paid  the  debt  of  nature  and  gone  to  their  last  ac- 
count. I  knew  them  all  personally,  and  practiced  law 
before  Jtid^e  Wilson  when  he  held  the  courts  in  the 

O 

4th  judicial  circuit  of  Illinois,  and  it  is  due  to  his 
memory  to  say  that  he  was  an  able  judge,  both  of  the 
Supreme  Court'and  the  courts  of  nisi prius. 

At  that  day  many  lawyers  considered  Smith  the  great 
light  on  the  bench,  as  many  more  thong th  Wilson  the 
great  light.  At  this  distance  of  time  I  shall  not 
undertake  to  decide  between  them,  but  I  will  step  aside 
to  say  that  Judge  Thomas  C.  Brown  was  the  Falstaff 
of  the  bench,  which  a  few  short  anecdotes  will  illus- 
trate. He  was  a  tall,  corpulent  man,  being  as  full  of 
wit  and  humor  as  an  egg  is  of  meat.  On  one  occa- 
sion, being  asked  where  he  then  lived,  he  answered, 
"  Why,  sir,  I  live  in  the  hearts  of  my  countrymen." 

Brown  never  refused  to  take  a  horn  when  invited, 
but  very  rarely  invited  others  to  take  a  horn  with  him. 
A  personal  friend  of  his  who  had  imbibed  too  freely 


74  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

during  the  session  of  1836  and  '37,  whose  name  I 
shall  not  mention  for  personal  reasons,  and  who  occu- 
pied the  same  room  with  Brown,  was  very  sick  the 
whole  of  the  night  thereafter,  and  kept  Brown  awake. 
Next  morning  Brown  took  him  by  the  arm  and  led 
him  one  side,  and  said  to  him : 

"  My  friend,  I  am  not  opposed  to  taking  a  social 
glass,  but  if  I  were  you,  from  the  way  it  affects  you, 
I  would  either  quit  drinking  or  kill  myself." 

"The  devil  you  would!"  said  his  friend. 

"  Well,  no,"  says  Brown,  "  I  don't  know  that  you 
will  be  driven  to  that  necessity,  for  there  are  a  hun- 
dred negroes  and  mulattoes  in  this  town  that  you  can 
hire  to  kill  you  for  a  quarter  of  a  dollar,  and  thus  save 
you  from  the  crime  of  suicide." 

I  will  relate  another  short  anecdote  of  which  I  was 
personally  cognizant.  I  desired  to  have  a  Colonel  Bod- 
kin, of  Alton,  admitted  to  the  bar  as  a  lawyer.  Know- 
ing that  his  qualifications  were  rather  slim,  I  hinted 
as  much  to  Brown,  and  got  him  to  go  to  my  room  to 
examine  him.  Bodkin  had  been  a  butcher.  He  had 
twinkling  grey  eyes  and  a  nose  like!  Bardolph's.  I 
said  to  Judge  Brown,  "Let  me  introduce  to  your 
acquaintance  Colonel  Bodkin,  who  desires  to  be  admit- 
ted to  the  bar,  to  practice  law;  will  you  please  exam- 
ine him  touching  his  qualifications?"  Turning  to 
Bodkin,  he  said:  "Colonel,  are  you  a  judge  of  good 
brandy?"  Bodkin  took  the  hint  in  a  moment,  rang 
the  bell,  and  a  servant  making  his  appearance,  he 
directed  him  to  bring  up  a  bottle  of  the  best  c  gnac 
and  some  loaf  sugar,  which  was  quickly  forthcoming, 
and  Judge  Brown  having  partaken  thereof,  with  the 
rest  of  us,  turned  to  the  Colonel,  and  said: 


SUPREME  COUKT  JUDGES.  75 

"  Colonel,  liave  you  read  Blackstone  and  Chitty?" 

"  O !  yes,  sir,"  says  the  Colonel. 

''What  do  you  think  of  them  as  authors?"  said  the 
Judge. 

"  I  think  very  highly  of  them,"  said  the  Colonel. 

"  Have  you  read  Shakspeare?"  asks  the  Judge. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  says  the  Colonel. 

"You  greatly  admire  him,  Colonel?"  says  the 
Judge. 

"  Oh,  beyond  all  the  power  of  language  to  express !" 
says  the  Colonel. 

"  Do  you  know  there  was  no  such  person  as  Shaks- 
peare?"  said  the  Judge. 

"  Indeed  I  did  not,"  said  the  Colonel. 

"It  is  true,"  said  the  Judge.  "Then  you  don't 
know,  Colonel,  who  wrote  the  work  entitled  '  The  Plays 
of  Shakspeare?" 

"  If  he  did  not  write  them  I  do  not  know,"  replied 
the  Colonel. 

""Would you  like  to  know?"  said  the  Judge. 

"  I  certainly  should,"  answered  the  Colonel. 

"  Then,"  said  the  Judge,  "  as  you  have  shown  in 
this  examination  the  highest  qualifications  to  be  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar,  I  will  say  to  you,  in  the  strictest 
confidence,  what  I  have  never  said  to  any  one  before, 
that  /  am  the  author  of  those  plays!  Mr.  Bodkin, 
write  out  your  license,  and  I  will  sign  it." 


76  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS. 


HERE  is  a  man  who  has  figured  but  slightly 
in  these  pages,  whom  it  is  time  for  us  now  to 
notice;  that  man  is  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who, 
during  his  life,  accomplished  much  for  himself  and  his 
adopted  State.  He  was  a  native  of  Vermont,  of  hum- 
ble origin,  and  certainly  not  very  liberally  educated. 
He  came  to  this  State  wThen  he  could  not  have  been 
over  twenty  or  twenty-one  years  of  age,  and  taught 
school  for  a  livelihood,  at  the  same  time  prosecuting 
his  study  of  the  law;  so  that  when  his  term  of  teach- 
ing was  out,  he  got  license  to  practice  law,  and  the 
legislature  elected  him  prosecuting  attorney  for  the 
district  in  which  he  lived,  which  included  Jacksonville. 
His  public  career  is  too  well  known  for  me  to  incum- 
ber  these  pages  with  that  which  has  been  a  thousand 
times  better  written  than  I  could  possibly  write  it,  it 
I  were  to  try.  I  will,  therefore,  only  notice  him  so 
far  as  he  stands  connected  with  Lincoln  and  myself. 

It  is  known  to  every  one  how  long  he  served  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  what  a  brilliant  rec- 
ord he  made  for  himself,  and  how  much  he  did  for  the 
State  of  Illinois,  and  what  a  world-wide  reputation  he 
won  for  himself.  No  one  will  deny  that,  had  it  not 
been  for  him,  we  should  never  have  obtained  from  the 
general  government  that  magnificent  grant  of  lands 


STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS.  77 

which  went  to  construct  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad, 
from  which  the  State  now  derives  a  revenue  of  from 
three  to  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  per  annum. 

I  was  a  member  of  the  legislature  in  1846,  when  we 
negotiated  with  the  company  that  afterwards  construct- 
ed that  road,  and  certainly  a  finer  thoroughfare  does  not 
exist  in  the  world;  connecting  the  great  northern  lakes 
with  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio  river,  and  Chicago,  the 
Queen  City  of  the  Northwest,  with  the  cities  of  Mobile 
and  l^ew  Orleans,  by  rail  and  water,  by  which  we  can 
send  our  products  to  every  port  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexi- 
co, and  through  the  Gulf  into  the  Atlantic,  and  to  all 
the  West  India  Islands,  and  every  part  of  the  world. 
Everybody  knows  how  we  are  connected  with  the  lakes 
and  the  northern  Atlantic.  It  is  impossible  to  antici- 
pate the  future  greatness  of  Illinois  and  the  city  of 
Chicago,  and  how  far  the  acts,  and  public  services  of 
Douglas  have  contributed  to  that  greatness  the  people 
of  Illinois  know  full  well.  Is  it  not  a  shame  he  should 
have  no  finished  monument  to  attest  the  gratitude  of 
a  people  for  whom  he  has  done  so  much? 

If  he  did  not  succeed  in  being  President  himself, 
he  contributed  largely  to  giving  one  to  the  State  of 
Illinois.  You  will  ask  how  this  happened.  I  answer, 
that  when  Mr.  Lincoln's  party  in  1858  nominated  him 
to  run  against  Douglas  for  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States,  their  joint  debate  made  Mr.  Lincoln  one  of  the 
most  prominent  men  of  his  party,  and  no  impartial 
friend  of  his  will  deny  that  that  debate  and  his  defeat 
for  the  senate  secured  his  nomination  in  1860  for  the 
presidency,  his  consequent  election,  and  all  the  glory 
and  honor  he  subsequently  won. 


78  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

Now  let  ns  contemplate  for  a  moment  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  as  a  patriot.  Instead  of  being  soured  by 
defeat,  as  many  ambitions  men  would  have  been,  when 
the  dark  clouds  of  civil  war  were  lowering  over  our  land 
he  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  Lincoln,  his  suc- 
cessful antagonist,  and  sounded  the  bugle-note  that 
caused  all  his  personal  and  political  friends  to  rally 
around  the  flag  of  the  Union.  No  State  can  boast 
two  greater  names  than  Lincoln  and  Douglas.  It  was 

O  o 

unnecessary  for  me  to  say  this  much  of  Douglas,  only 
that  I  desire,  in  these  my  memoirs,  to  lay  an  humble 
leaf  of  laurel  on  the  grave  of  my  friend. 

My  intimacy  and  friendship  with  Douglas  com- 
menced in  1836,  when  I  was  a  very  young  man,  and 
he  was,  as  it  were,  a  mere  boy.  He  looked  like  a  boy, 
with  his  smooth  face  and  diminutive  proportions,  but 
when  he  spoke  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  as  he 
often  did  in  1836  and  '37,  he  spoke  like  a  man,  and 
loomed  up  into  the  proportions  of  an  intellectual 
giant,  and  it  was  at  that  session  he  got  the  name  of 
the  "Little  Giant,"  by  which  he  was  called  all  over 
the  Union  till  the  day  of  his  death — "The  Little 
Giant  of  Illinois." 

My  personal  intercourse  with  him  was  like  that  of 
a  brother,  which,  in  one  respect,  I  was.  Worthy 
reader,  I  promised  in  the  beginning  of  these  memoirs 
to  say  as  little  about  myself  as  possible.  I  am  writ- 
ing my  recollections  of  other  men,  and  not  an  auto- 
biography; but  I  will  relate  a  little  circumstance 
here  which  occurred  between  Douglas  and  myself 
when  he  was  running  for  the  Senate  in  1858.  When 
he  was  canvassing  the  Northern  portion  of  the  State, 


STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS.  79 

a  great  many  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  friends  followed  him  to 
his  large  meetings,  which  they  would  address  at  night, 
attacking  Douglas  when  he  would  be  in  bed  asleep, 
worn  out  by  die  fatigues  of  the  day.  He  telegraphed 
me  to  meet  him  at  Freeport,  and  travel  around  the 
State  with  him  and  help  to  fight  off  the  hell-hounds, 
as  he  called  them,  that  were  howling  on  his  path,  and 
used  this  expression :  "  For  God  sake,  Linder,  come." 
Some  very  honest  operator  stole  the  telegram  as  it  was 
passing  over  the  wire,  and  published  it  in  the  Repub- 
lican papers.  They  dubbed  me  thenceforth  with  the 
sobriquet  of  "  For  God's  Sake  Linder,"  which  I  have 
worn  with  great  pride  and  distinction  ever  since. 

I  met  him  at  St.  Louis;  his  wife,  a  most  elegant 
lady,  was  with  him.  We  traveled  down  through  the 
Southern  part  of  Illinois,  speaking  together  at  all  his 
meetings — as  far  down  as  Cairo  and  up  to  Jones- 
borough,  where  he  and  Lincoln  met  in  joint  debate. 
These  debates  were  published,  and  they,  of  themselves, 
are  enduring  monuments  of  the  greatness  of  the  two 
men.  But  Mr.  Douglas'  great  theatre  was  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States.  His  speeches  there  will 
rank  with  those  of  Clay,  Webster  and  Calhoun,  and  in 
debate  he  was  not  a  whit  inferior  to  either  of  them, 
and  I  know  from  good  authority  that  he  was  the 
favorite  of  all  three  of  these  men. 

Douglas  on  one  occasion,  in  a  social  chat  between 
him  and  myself,  gave,  me  a  detailed  account  of  his 
trip  to  Europe,  and  of  his  permission  to  see  Queen 
Victoria  if  he  would  do  so  in  court  dress,  whicli  he 
declined,  saying  that  he  would  wear  just  such  clothes 
as  he  usually  wore  when  visiting  the  President  of  the 


80  LIXDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

United  States.  But  when  he  got  to  Russia,  the  great 
Nicholas,  who  was  then  on  the  throne,  granted  him 
the  privilege  to  see  him  in  the  same  dress  he  usually 
wore  at  the  White  House.  He  did  Douglas  and  our 
country  the  honor  to  send  his  own  carriage  for  him, 
and  had  him  brought  out  to  one  of  the  Russian 
steppes,  where  Nicholas  was  reviewing  a  million  of  his 
troops.  Said  he,  "Linder,  it  was  the  most  imposing 
sight  I  ever  saw.  They  were  drawn  up  in  the  form  of 
a  Y,  stretching  away  back  beyond  the  reach  of  my 
vision.  At  the  apex  of  this  Y  was  a  brilliant  cortege, 
the  principal  figure  being  Nicholas  himself;  the  rest 
were  composed  of  his  household  and  domestic  minis- 
ters and  ambassadors,  from  all  the  known  world.  I 
was  taken,"  said  he,  "  not  to  this  cortege,  but  about  a 
half  a  mile  from  there,  where  the  carriage  stopped, 
and  I  was  helped  out  by  what  I  supposed  to  be  one  of 
the  emperor's  most  distinguished  officers,  'for  he  was 
covered  all  over  by  crosses  and  badges  of  honor,  and 
there  were  others  there  similarly  decorated.  He 
pointed  to  ahorse,  a  beautiful  steed,  the  most  elegantly 
caparisoned  I  ever  saw;  the  brow-band  of  the  bridle 
was  actually  studded  with  diamonds;  other  portions 
of  the  horse's  covering  were  literally  glittering  with 
o-old  and  silver.  I  knew  the  horse  was  intended  for 

o 

me.  I  went  up  and  examined  the  stirrup-straps,  and 
found  them  about  a  foot  too  long.  I  turned  around, 
and  asked  in  English  (being  the  only  language  I  could 
speak),  if  any  gentleman  would  shorten  the  stirrups 
for  me,  but  to  my  utter  dismay  not  a  word  could  any 
of  them  speak,  or  understand  what  1  said  to  them ;  but  I 
made  them  understand  by  signs,  and  by  fitting  the  stir- 


STEPHEN  A.  DOUGLAS.  81 

rnp  leathers  to  my  arms,  what  I  wanted,  and  they  were 
quickly  shortened  to  fit  my  short  legs,  and  I  mounted. 
I  did  not  know  exactly  what  I  was  to  do,  but  the  horse 
informed  me,  for  he  turned  his  head  towards  the  bril- 
liant cortege,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  and  broke  for  it 
like  the  wind.  He  had  hardly  started,  however,  when 
another  horse,  with  a  giant-like  form  upon  him, 
caparisoned  exactly  like  the  one  I  was  on,  left  the  very 
head  of  the  cortege  and  came,  with  the  speed  of  a 
Mazeppa,  right  towards  me.  Thinks  I,  yon  are  going 
to  come  together  like  a  couple  of  locomotives,  but  I'll 
take  the  chances  and  let  you  drive.  On  they  both 
went,  as  though  they  were  going  to  run  through  each 
other,  until  they  came  up,  nose  to  nose,  and  reared  up 
on  their  hind  feet,  and  then  brought  their  fore  feet 
right  down  to  the  ground  together  and  stood  as  still 
as  death,  when  the  tall,  fine-looking  man  on  the  other 
horse,  addressed  me  in  good  English,  in  about  these 
words: 

"'I  have  the  pleasure,  I  presume,  of  receiving  and 
welcoming  to  Russia,  Senator  Douglas,  of  Illinois?' ' 

"  I  bowed  my  assent,  and  replied :  '  I  presume  I  have 
the  honor  of  being  received  and  welcomed  by  His 
Majesty,  Nicholas,  Emperor  of  all  the  Russias.' 

•'  From  thence  we  rode  along  together,  engaged  in 
familiar  chat.  He  asked  me  a  good  many  questions 
in  regard  to  the  way  which  I  had  corne,  and  if  I  had 
come  by  the  way  of  Constantinople.  I  told  him  I  had. 
He  asked  me  if  I  saw  any  signs  or  preparations  of  war 
there.  I  answered  I  had  not.  He  then  asked  me  what 
the  prevailing  opinion  was  there  as  to  whether  there 
would  be  any  war.  I  said,  'The  opinion  seems  to  be 
6 


82  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

that  it  depends  entirely  upon  your  Majesty  whether 
there  will  be  peace  or  war.' 

"  We  arrived  at  the  cortege,  and  he  gave  me  the  place 
of  honor,  near  his  own  person.  Linder,"  said  Doug- 
las, "  that  was  a  proud  day  for  my  country.  I  never 
was  vain  enough  to  appropriate  it  to  myself.  When 
the  little  man  in  black  was  given  the  place  of  honor,  it 
was  a  stroke  of  policy  on  the  part  of  Nicholas;  it 
amounted  to  saying  to  the  hundred  ambassadors  from 
all  the  nations  of  the  world:  'Gentlemen,  I  intend  to 
make  the  great  people  of  the  great  republic  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic  my  friends,  and  if  any  of 
your  nations  go  to  war  with  me,  rest  assured  that  that 
people  will  stand  by  me.'  I  received  every  attention 
that  it  was  possible  for  mortal  man  to  receive,  all  of 
which  I  knew  was  intended  for  my  country." 

I  shall  now  take  leave  of  my  old  friend,  Douglas.  1 
cannot  add  to  his  great  name  by  anything  I  might  say. 
I  loved  him  with  the  love  that  Jonathan  had  for 
David — "A  love  that  passeth  the  love  of  woman." 


O.  H.  BKOWNING.  83 


0. 


|H.  BKOWNING,  of  Quincy,  111.,  was  also 
one  of  the  Senators  at  the  session  of  the  Illi- 
nois legislature  of  1836  and  '37,  who  has  since 
obtained  high  and  enviable  distinction  as  a  lawyer  and 
a  statesman.  He  came  to  this  State  from  the  State  of 
Kentucky.  He  was  appointed  to  fill  the  vacancy  in 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States  caused  by  the  death  of 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  and  afterwards  was  appointed  as 
Secretary  of  the  Interior.  In  all  the  posts  Mr.  Brown- 
ing has  filled,  he  has  done  so  with  great  honor  to  him- 
self and  benefit- to  his  country.  He  is  still  living,  and 
in  high  practice.  He  is  a  man  of  wealth,  has  no 
children  of  his  own,  but  has,  I  think,  an  adopted  daugh- 
ter, of  whom  he  and  Mrs.  Browning — an  elegant  and 
accomplished  lady — are  as  fond  as  if  she  were  their 
own  daughter. 

Mr.  Browning  practices  in  our  Federal  Courts  of 
Chicago,  although  at  an  advanced  age — being  about 
seventy  years  old.  He  is  one  of  the  fifteen  survi-  \ 
vors  of  the  one  hundred  and  five  members  of  the  leg- 
islature of  1836  and  '37.  He  could  very  well  pass  for 
fifty -five  years  old,  being  very  healthy  and  well  pre- 
served. He  is  retained  in  most  of  the  large  causes 
brought  for  and  against  the  railroad  companies.  "We 


84  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

have  always  been  great  personal  friends.  I  remember 
canvassing  his  Congressional  District  for  him,  against 
William  A.  Richardson,  in  1852,  leaving  my  own  elec- 
tion, in  Coles  county,  to  take  care  of  itself.  I  was, 
consequently,  beaten  some  twenty-five  votes. 


WILLIAM  A.  RICHARDSON.  85 


WILLIAM  A.  RIOHAEDSOK 


1ILLIAM  A.  RICHARDSON  was  also  a  mem- 
ber of  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Illi- 
nois legislature,  of  1836  and  '37.  He  was  a 
captain  in  the  Black  Hawk  war.  He  was  also  a  cap- 
tain or  a  major  under  General  Taylor,  in  his  Mexican 
war,  and  fought  under  him  in  the  battle  of  Buena  Yis- 
ta.  He  was  many  years  a  Representative  in  Congress 
from  the  military  district,  and  came  very  near  being 
elected  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and 
was  subsequently  elected  to  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States. 

Richardson  filled  all  the  positions  which  he  ever 
occupied  with  much  honor  and  distinction,  and  is  still 
living  at  this  writing,  in  the  city  of  Quincy,  Illinois. 
He  is  nearly,  if  not  quite,  seventy  years  of  age. 

At  the  session  of  1836  and  '37,  Richardson  repre- 
sented the  county  of  Schuyler,  and  General  George  W. 
Maxwell,  who  is  now  dead,  and  who  since  that  session 
married  a  sister  of  my  wife,  was  Senator  from  the  dis- 
trict of  which  Schuyler  county  formed  a  part.  He, 
also,  as  well  as  Richardson,  was  in  the  Black  Hawk 
war,  and  had  the  command  of  a  company  or  regiment, 
I  don't  now  remember  which.  He  was  a  whole-souled, 
kind-hearted,  clever  fellow — peace  be  to  his  ashes! 


86  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JOECN"  D.  WHITESIDE. 


JOHN  D.  WHITESIDE,  of  whom  I  have 
casually  spoken,  was  also  a  member  of  the 
Senate  of  the  session  of  1836 7 and  '37.  He 
was  a  candidate,  and  elected  as  Treasurer  of  the  State, 
by  the  Legislature  at  this  session,  which  office  he  held 
for  many  years  after  the  seat  of  government  was  re- 
moved to  Springfield,  by  re-election.  He  was  the  gen- 
tleman who  bore  the  challenge  from  Shields  to  Lin- 
coln. He  was  a  candidate  at  this  session  for  Speaker 
of  the  Senate,  but  was  defeated  by  Col.  William  H. 
Davidson,  from  White  county. 

He  was  a  man  eminently  social,  of  great  colloquial, 
conversational  talents.  He  did  not  mingle  much,  in 
the  debates  of  the  Senate,  but,  as  Lsaid  before,  he  went 
to  Europe  to  borrow  money  on  our  bonds,  where,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  account,  he  made  quite  a  splurge, 
and  talked  to  the  capitalists  and  nobility,  and  let  them 
know  that  if  they  were  high  and  honored  subjects  of 
the  English  king,  he  was  one  of  the  free  sovereigns  of 
America.  I  've  had  many  a  hearty  laugh  in  listening 
to  Whiteside,  who  reminded  me  of  the  old  Dutchman 
who  set  his  hen  on  a  wash-tub  of  eggs,  and  when  his 
wife  asked  him  why  he  did  it — "Py  Shesus,"  said  he, 
"yust  to  see  de  olt  plue  hen  spread  herself."  He  has 
long  since  gone  to  his  last  account.  He  was  widely  and 
favorably  known  all  over  the  State  of  Illinois. 


JUSTIN  BUTTEKFIELD.  87 


JUSTIN"    BUTTEEFIELD. 


|TIEKE  were  other  men,  wlio  were  not  members 
of  this  legislature,  who  were  present  during 
the  session— generally  distinguished  lawyers, 
in  attendance  on  the  Supreme  Court.  Amongst  the 
rest  was  Justin  Butterfield,  of  Chicago,  one  of  the  most 
learned,  talented  and  distinguished  members  of  the 
bar,  whom  I  will  introduce  to  the  reader  at  this  time, 
although  perhaps  he  might  fall  in  more  properly  fur- 
ther along  in  these  memoirs.  He  was  a  man  of  rare 
wit  and  humor,  and  I  ain  satisfied  that  a  few  anecdotes 
in  illustration  thereof  will  not  be  unacceptable  to  the 
reader.  He  had  held  office  in  New  York  at  the  break- 
ing out  of  the  uar  of  1812,  and  having  opposed  that 
war,  it  destroyed  his  popularity  and  laid  him  on  the 
shelf  for  many  years.  When  the  war  broke  out  be- 
tween this  country  and  Mexico,  during  Folk's  admin- 
istration, some  person  asked  him  if  he  was  opposed  to 
the  war.  "  No,  by  G-d,  I  oppose  no  wars.  I  opposed 
one  war,  and  it  ruined  me,  and  henceforth  I  am  for 
War,  Pestilence  and  Fanum-." 

During  the  contest  of  1840  between  Harrison  and 
Van  Buren,  some  Federal  office-holder  met  Butterfield 
in  debate.  Butterfield  charged  the  hard  times  that 
then  afflicted  the  country  to  the  course  pursued  by  the 


88  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

administration.  The  office-holder  replied,  denying 
that  there  was  hard  times,  and  declared  that  he  never 
saw  better  times  in  his  life.  Butterfield,  in  his 
rejoinder,  used  the  following  language: 

"Fellow-citizens,  I  believe,  in  my  soul,  that  if  it 
lained  fire  and  brimstone,  as  it  did  at  Sodom  and 
Gomorah,  these  locofocos  would  exclaim,  '  What  a 
refreshing  shower!'"  The  office-holder  sneaked  off 
and  said  no  more. 

One  more  specimen  of  his  wit,  and  I  will  give  no 
more.  On  the  trial  of  Joe  Smith,  the  great  Mormon 
prophet,  at  Springfield,  before  His  Honor  Judge  Pope, 
of  the  United  States  District  Court,  the  court  room 
was  crowded,  and  a«large  number  of  ladies  were  seated 
on  both  sides  of  the  judge,  upon  the  bench.  Butter- 
field,  who  had  been  employed  to  defend  the  prophet, 
in  opening  the  case,  bowing  to  the  judge  and  waving 
his  hand  to  the  ladies,  said:  "May  it  please  your 
Honor,  I  appear  before  the  Pope,  in  the  presence  of 
angels,  to  defend  the  prophet  of  the  Lord ! " 


BENJAMIN  MILLS. 


BEN 3 A  MOT  MILLS. 


|N  THE  introductory  portion  of  these  pages,  in 
enumerating  distinguished  and  eminent  law- 
yers, who  were  in  Illinois  when  I  came  here,  I 
neglected  to  mention  Ben  Mills.     I  never  saw  him, 

O  * 

but  from  all  that  I  can  learn  from  those  who  knew 
him,  he  had  but  few  equals,  if  any,  in  the  State.  He 
was  a  Massachusetts  man,  highly  educated,  and  I  have 
been  told  that  he  was  a  man  of  a  rare  style  of  oratory, 
through  which  there  ran  a  rich  vein  of  wit  and 
irony.  It  was  a  talent  he  often  indulged  in  in  conver- 
sation. A  few  specimens  will  not  be  without  interest 
to  the  reader. 

Ben,  one  day  when  he  was  in  his  cups  at  his  hotel, 
was  sitting  about  half  asleep  when  Cavarly,  a  pompous 
lawver,  who  thought  he  knew  more  than  Lord  Coke  or 

»/          '  o 

Blackstone,  stepped  up  to  where  Mills  was  sitting  and 
laid  his  hand  on  Ben's  bald  head  and  remarked, 
"  Friend  Mills,  you  have  quite  a  prairie  on  your  head." 
"  Yes,  Cavarly,"  he  said,  "  and  do  you  know  the  dif- 
ference between  you  and  me?"  "  By  no  means,  brother 
Mills,"  said  he,  in  quite  a  patronizing  manner.  "  Well, 
I'll  tell  you,"  said  Mills,  "  My  prairie  is  on  my  head, 
but  yours  is  inside  of  your  head." 

Mills  was  the  son  of  a  New  England  Presbyterian 


90  LlNDEft'i?  "RU 

minister,  and  came  to  Illinois  at  an  early  day,  when 
there  was  a  law  authorizing  a  justice  of  the  peace, 
if  he  heard  a  man  swear,  even  upon  the  street,  to 
go  to  his  office  and  enter  up  a  fine  of  one  dollar 
against  him.  Ben  was  a  justice  of  the  peace,  and 
was  one  day  taking  his  glass  with  another  justice  of 
the  peace  at  his  hotel,  in  Greenville,  111.,  when  he 
happened  to  let  slip  about  half  a  dozen  oaths.  His 
brother  justice  said  nothing  about  it  at  the  time. 
This  was  in  the  morning.  They  met  again  at  the 
same  place  in  the  evening  and  were  taking  another 
social  glass  together,  when  his  friend  remarked: 

"  Brother  Mills,  you  swore  several  oaths  this  morn- 
ing, and  you  know  the  law  makes  it  my  duty  to  enter 
a  fine  against  you  of  a  dollar  for  each  oath." 

"  I  know  it,  my  brother,"  said  Mills,  "  and  thought 
of  it,  as  I  went  to  my  office,  and  being  a  justice  of  the 
peace  myself,  I  entered  upon  my  docket  a  fine  of  one 
dollar  for  each  oath  I  swore." 

"  Oh,  well,"  says  his  friend,  "  that  will  do.  Come, 
brother  Mills,  let  us  have  another  glass."  And  when 
they  were  about  to  drink  it,  Ben  remarked:  "But you 
know,  my  brother,  that  the  policy  of  the  law  is  refor- 
mation and  not  vengeance,  and  feeling  that  that  object 
has  been  thoroughly  accomplished  in  my  case,  by  the 
fine,  I  am  now  considering  the  question  of  remitting 
it."  After  their  glass  and  a  hearty  laugh,  they  parted. 

Another  specimen  of  Ben's  wit  and  sarcasm  I  will 
give,  which  was  communicated  to  me  by  Judge  Blod- 
gett.  When  Mills  was  at  Kaskaskia,  there  was  a 
lawyer  there  whom  they  called  General  Adams — a 
pompous  fellow,  who  dressed  in  magnificent  style, 


BENJAMIN  MILLS.  91 

and  wore  ruffled  shirts.  He  had  a  client  who  had  been 
indicted  for  murder,  and  Adams,  to  secure  his  fee,  took 
a  mortgage  upon  everything  the  fellow  had  in  the 
world,  even  down  to  his  household  and  kitchen 
furniture.  His  client  was  convicted  and  sentenced 
to  be  hung  some  thirty  days  thereafter,  and 
between  the  sentence  and  execution,  Adams  fore- 
closed his  mortgage  and  sold  the  property,  not 
leaving  the  wife  and  children  of  the  criminal  a  bed 
to  sleep  on,  or  a  pot  in  which  to  cook  their  dinner. 
His  client  was  hung  and  his  body  handed  over  to  the 
surgeons  for  scientific  experiment.  The  doctors  invited 
the  lawyers  to  attend,  and  amongst  the  rest  came  Gen- 
eral Adams  and  Ben.  Mills.  They  had  their  galvanic 
battery,  and  placed  one  of  the  poles  (I  believe  that  is 
what  they  call  it)  to  his  spinal  column  while  his  body 
was  still  warm  and  let  on  the  electric  current.  Imme- 
diately the  corpse  began  to  wink  and  his  face  to  draw 
itself  into  most  horrid  contortions,  when  Adams,  laying 
his  hand  upon  Mills' shoulder,  said,  in  a  very  slow  and 
solemn  voice: 

"This  is  a  very  sorrowful  sight." 

"  Yes,"  said  Ben,  "  it  must  be  very  sorrowful  to  a 
lawyer  to  see  his  client  skinned  the  second  time." 

General  Adams  sneaked  off  and  left  the  doctors  to 
h'nish  their  experiment. 

I  will  mention  here  a  murder  trial  which  took  place 
at  Edwards ville,  before  I  came  to  the  State  of  Illinois. 
It  was  the  trial  of  a  lawyer  of  the  name  of  Winches- 
ter for  the  killing  of  a  man  by  the  name  of  Smith. 
The  facts  of  the  case  as  I  have  learned  them,  were 
something  like  these:  Smith,  who  was  a  very  foul- 


92  LENDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

mouthed  man  in  his  drunken  sprees,  had  repeatedly 
charged  Gov.  Edwards  with  a  criminal  intimacy  with 
Mrs.  Stephenson,  a  very  beautiful  and  reputable 
woman.  She  was  the  mother  of  Winchester's  wife, 
and  in  a  drunken  spree  at  Ed  wards  ville,  where  a  great 
many  of  her  and  Gov.  Edwards'  friends  were  present, 
and  amongst  the  rest  her  son-in-law,  Winchester, 
Smith  repeated  the  slander,  and  somebody  stabbed 
him,  of  which  wound  he  died.  Winchester  was 
indicted  for  murder;  a  special  term  of  the  court  was 
appointed  for  his  trial,  which  was  presided  over  by 
Judge  Samuel  McRoberts.  Governor  Edwards  took  a 
very  active  part  in  having  Winchester  defended.  He 
sent  and  had  Felix  Grundy  brought  from  Tennessee, 
who  was  then  one  of  the  greatest  criminal  lawyers  in 
the  Southwest,  and  only  second,  perhaps,  to  John 
Rowan  of  Kentucky.  Mills  was  his  prosecutor.  The 
trial  took  place  at  Edwardsville,  and  I  have  been  told 
by  those  who  were  present  at  the  trial,  and  amongst 
the  rest,  Judge  Samuel  McRoberts,  in  his  life-time, 
that  it  was  one  of  the  ablest,  most  fearful  and  terrible 
prosecutions  they  ever  heard.  It  took  all  the  talent 
and  oratory  of  Felix  Grundy,  aided  by  the  presence 
and  countenance  which  Gov.  Edwards  and  his  friends 
gave  to  the  defense,  to  prevent  a  conviction,  and 
Winchester  was  only  acquitted  by  the  "  skin  of  his 
teeth." 

There  were  doubtless  many  other  incidents  in  the 
life  of  Mills,  if  I  knew  them,  which  would  go  to  show 
that  he  was  one  of  the  ablest,  most  learned  and  accom- 
plished lawyers  of  that  day.  I  will  mention,  in  conclu- 
sion, that  I  have  been  informed  that  before  his  death 


BENJAMIN  MILLS.  93 

he  reformed  his  habits,  joined  the  church,  and  died 
a  most  exemplary  and  hopeful  Christian.  All  I  am. 
afraid  of  is  that  this  notice  will  not  do  him  the  justice 
to  which  he  is  entitled.  Judge  Blodgett  informs  me 
that  Mills  and  his  father  (Isaac  Blodgett)  were  boys 
together,  and  Mills  was  often  a  guest  at  their  house 
when  the  Judge  was  but  a  mere  boy,  and  that  he  never 
saw  a  man  that  he  more  admired  and  loved.  He 
died  somewhere  about  1850,  and  I  believe,  from  what 
I  have  heard,  he  left  as  spotless  a  record  as  any  lawyer 
that  ever  lived  in  the  State  of  Illinois.  Let  the  rising 
generation  of  young  lawyers  cherish  his  memory  and 
try  to  imitate  his  example. 


94  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


SAMUEL  MCROBERTS. 


j|T  THIS  place  I  will  introduce  to  the  attention 
of  my  readers  Judge  Samuel  McRoberts,  of 
Danville,  111.  He  was  a  lawyer  in  high  prac- 
tice when  I  came  to  the  State.  We  frequently  met 
and  traveled  together  on  the  circuit.  "When  I  went  to 
the  court  at  Danville,  he  would  not  permit  me  to  stop 
at  the  hotel  but  to^k  me  to  his  own  house,  where  I 
was  most  hospitably  entertained.  At  the  beginning 
of  our  acquaintance  he  was  Register  or  Receiver  at 
the  land  office  at  Danville — I  don't  now  renfember 
which.  He  was  a  fine  lawyer,  and  what  is  better,  he 
was  an  honest  man  and  a  warm  and  most  devoted 
friend,  of  which  I  had  many  proofs  during  our  long 
acquaintance.  He  had  an  amiable  and  most  beautiful 
wife,  who  presided  over  his  household  affairs  with  great 
elegance  and  refinement. 

He  was  finally  elected  to  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  from  Illinois,  and  next  to  Dr.  Linn,  of  Missouri, 
he  took  the  most  prominent  part  on  the  Oregon  ques- 
tion. I  remember  very  well  that  he  took  the  ground 
that  we  were  entitled  to  all  the  territory  south  of  54° 
40",  in  which  many  other  Democrats  agreed  with  him, 
until  Col.  Benton,  of  Missouri, ,  proved  conclusively 
that  our  claim  did  not  extend  beyond  the  49th  degree 


SAMUEL  McRosEKTS.  95 

of  north  latitude,  and  upon  that  line  the  American 
and  English  governments  finally  settled.  He  died 
before  his  term  in  the  Senate  expired.  I  have  nothing 
to  recall  of  him  very  peculiar  or  extraordinary. 

He  was  a  most  estimable  and  kind-hearted  man,  and 
had  but  few  superiors  as  a  lawyer.  He  was  widely  and 
favorably  known,  and  left  but  one  son,  who  inherited  a 
very  handsome  property  from  his  father.  Judge  Jo- 
siah  McRoberts  was  guardian  of  the  boy,  and  at  his 
majority  paid  him  the  handsome  sum  of  thirty  thou- 
sand dollars.  He  was  a  most  faithful  and  honest  guar- 
dian. He  was  a  student  with  his  brother  Sam  when  I 
used  to  stop  there.  There  was  one  thing  peculiar  about 
Judge  Samuel  Me  Roberts.  He  could  give  the  hearti- 
est laugh  when  he  was  amused  of  any  man  I  ever 
heard.  Now,  worthy  reader,  a  man  can't  laugh  on  pa- 
per; if  he  could,  I  would  give  you  a  specimen  of  his 
laugh  that  would  make  you  roar. 

There  is  one  little  anecdote  connected  with  the  name 
of  McRoherts  which  I  have  just  thought  of  and  had 
come  near  leaving  out.  Nearly  all  the  lawyers  of 
Judge  Harlan's  circuit  met  at  the  Edgar  county  Cir- 
cuit Court — amongst  the  rest  McRoberts  and  myself. 
In  those  days  we  nearly  all  roomed  together.  There 
was  a  man  by  the  name  of  Lodge,  who  was  a  brick- 
layer by  trade,  but  who  had  arisen  to  be  the  superin- 
tendent of  a  large  farm  belonging  to  the  Neifs,  of  Cin- 
cinnati, which  lay  not  far  from  Paris,  111.  Lodge  was 
in  the  habit  of  seeking  every  opportunity  to  talk  with 
the  judge  and  us  lawyers,  and  would  generally  seize 
and  run  away  with  the  conversation.  One  day  he  came 
in  where  we  were  all  talking,  and  with  great  pomposity 


96  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

and  egotism  told  us  the  following  little  story,  of  which 
he  made  himself  the  hero.  He  said  he  had  a  water- 
melon patch  adjoining  the  road  from  Danville  to  Paris; 
that  he  was  one  day  sitting  on  his  piazza,  which  over- 
looked this  melon  patch,  and  about  a  half  a  mile  there- 
from, and  while  sitting  there  he  saw  a  gentleman  coin- 
ing along  in  his  buggy,  and  when  he  got  opposite  to 
the  melon  patch  he  jumped  out,  got  over  the  fence, 
pulled  one  of  his  finest  melons,  of  which  he  had 
several  thousand,  and  deliberately  commenced  eat- 
ing it.  He  said  he  concluded  that  he  would  go 
down  and  have  a  talk  with  the  gentleman.  He  edi- 
fied and  regaled  us  with  a  fine  moral  lecture  which 
he  delivered  to  the  stranger,  and  said  he  told  him 
if  he  had  come  and  asked  for  the  watermelon,  he 
would  have  given  it  to  him;  and  said  he  ended  by 
walking  up  to  him  and  deliberately  knocking  the 
melon  out  of  his  hand.  He  said  the  man  seemed 
greatly  mortified,  and  said  to  him:  ''  Sir,  I  am  a  gen- 
tleman; my  name  is  Bishop,  a  commission  merchant 
at  Evansville,  Indiana.  In  my  State,  when  we  raised 
vast  quantities  of  melons,  it  is  not  thought  to  be  a  ser- 
ious matter  or  a  crime  for  a  man  to  help  himself  to  a 
melon  by  the  wayside,  and  if  you  feel  very  much  con- 
cerned about  it,  here  is  the  pay  for  it,"  pulling  out  his 
purse.  Lodge  refused,  as  he  told  us,  and  went  on  to 
deliver  a  lecture  to  Mr.  Bishop  on  the  rights  of  equal- 
ity of  men,  saying  that  he  did  not  consider  that  it  con- 
ferred an  honor  on  him  that  a  commission  merchant 
or  any  one  else  should  take  his  melons  without  leave; 
and  here  he  stopped.  Lodge  not  being  one  of  us,  we 
lawyers  did  not  relish  his  stories,  and  I  was  about 


SAMUEL  McRoBERTS.  97 

telling  one  that  should  make  him  give  us  a  wide  berth 
in  the  future,  when  McRoberts  relieved  us  all,  as  he 
burst  out  in  one  of 'Jus  great  "horse  laughs,"  which,  to 
appreciate,  should  be  heard.  "Ha!  ha!  ha!"  says  he 
"that  reminds  me  of  a  story  I  heard  of  William  the 
Fourth  when  he  was  Prince  of  Wales.  He  was  travel- 
ing in  cog.  through  Canada,  and  at  Montreal  he  strayed 
into  a  tailor  shop,  where  the  tailor  and  his  wife  were 
both  sitting  on  the  counter  at  work;  the  tailor,  with 
crossed  legs,  pressing  a  seam  with  his  hot  goose,  and  his 
wife  sewing  away  at  some  garment  with  nimble  fingers. 
Neither  seemed  to  pay  much  attention  to  the  disguised 
royal  stranger,  when  William,  stepping  up  towards 
where  the  woman  was  sitting,  turning  his  head,  asked 
the  tailor  if  that  was  his  wife.  '  She  is  a  very  pretty 
woman,'  said  the  Prince,  and  pulling  her  head  down 
towards  him,  he  deliberately  kissed  her,  and  turning 
to  the  tailor  very  patronizingly,  said,  '  Now,  Sir,  you 
will  have  the  honor  of  telling  your  children  that  your 
wife  was  kissed  by  the  King  of  England.  I  am  Wil- 
liam, the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  heir-apparent  to  the 
throne.' 

"  The  tailor  laid  down  his  gooso,  put  on  his  slippers, 
jumped  off  of  the  counter,  and  catching  William  by  the 
shoulders  pushed  him  to  the  door  and  gave  him  two  or 
three  lusty  kicks  on  the  seat  of  honor,  and  said,  '  Now, 
sir,  you  will  have  the  honor  of  telling  your  subjects 
that  in  one  of  your  Majesty's  Provinces  you  had  your 
posterior  kicked  by  a  tailor.'" 

Lodge  looked  like  he  could  have  crawled  through  an 
auger  hole,  and  said:  "Judge  McRoberts,  I  hope  you 
don't  mean  to  say  there  is  the  same  disparity  between 

7 


98 


LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


Bishop  and  myself  as  existed  between  the  prince  and 
the  tailor!" 
Whereupon  we  all  burst  into  a  most  uproarious  fit 

of  laughter,  when  Lodge  left,   and  never  visited  us 
again. 


AUGUSTUS  0.  FRENCH.  99 


AUGUSTUS  O.  FEENOH. 


jKNOW  no  better  place  than  tins  to  introduce 
to  the  attention  of  my  readers  the  late  Au- 
gustus C.  French,  twice  Governor  of  the  State 
of  Illinois.  Mr.  French  was  a  lawyer  by  profession, 
and  was  one  of  the  representatives  from  Edgar  county 
in  1836  and  '37.  At  that  session  he  ,was  elected  Pros- 
ecuting-Attorney  for  the  Fourth  Judicial  Circuit.  He 
made  a  very  good  Prosecuting- Attorney,  and  became 
quite  popular  in  the  Wabash  country.  O.  B.  Ficklin, 
who  had  represented  his  district  in  Congress  for 
many  years,  became  alarmed  for  fear  the  Democracy 
would  take  French  up  and  run  him  for  Congress,  so 
he  determined  to  get  him  out  of  the  way  if  possible. 
He  represented  to  the  party  in  the  Wabash  region  that 
the  Wabash  was  entitled  to  a  Governor  and  advised  the 
party  to  take  up  French.  My  opinion  is,  that  Fick- 
lin at  that  time  had  no  idea  that  French  could  be 
elected,  or  could  even  get  the  nomination  of  a  State 
Democratic  Convention,  which  in  those  days  was 
equivalent  to  an  election.  The  delegates  from  the 
Wabash  counties  were  all  for  French.  Ficklin  had 
baited  his  hook  with  the  governorship,  and  French 
swallowed  like  a  hungry  fish.  The  two  prominent 
men  before  the  convention,  if  I  remember  correctly, 


100  LINDEB'S  REMIJSTISCEXCES. 

were  Trumbull  and  Calhoun,  but  neither  had  a  major- 
ity of  all  the  delegates.  They  had  many  ballotings, 
French's  friends  standing  by  him  to  the  last.  Every 
expedient  was  tried  by  the  friends  of  Trumbull  and 
Calhoun  to  get  the  friends  of  French  to  go  for  them,  but 
to  no  effect.  They  grew  more  and  more  bitter  towards 
each  other,  and  finally  settled  down  upon  French,  who 
was  really  not  the  first,  or  even  the  second  choice  of 
the  Democratic  party  of  the  State,  but  he  was  nomi- 
nated, and  of  course,  triumphantly  elected.  Neverthe- 
less, he  made  a  pretty  fair  governor. 

French  has  long  since  gone  to  his  last  account,  and 
I  would  be  very  far  from  saying  anything  that  would 
derogate  from  his  standing,  or  in  the  slighest  degree 
tarnish  his  reputation.  While  I  believe  in  the  main 
he  was  a  man  of  truth,  and  would  not  have  told  a  false- 
hood that  \vould  tend  to  the  injury  of  any  one,  he  had 
a  sort  of  diseased  propensity  for  telling  marvelous 
stories,  of  which  he  generally  made  himself  the  hero, 
many  of  which  were  as  monstrously  absurd  and  false 
as  those  of  Baron  Munchausen  or  Gulliver.  A  single 
one  of  these  stories,  which  he  told  to  every  member 
of  the  bar  on  the  circuit,  will  be  sufficient  to  demon- 
strate his  propensity  in  that  direction.  He  said  when 
he  was  a  boy  about  ten  years  old,  he  ran  away  from 
his  parents,  crossed  the  Atlantic  to  England  wended 
his  way  to  the  king's  palace  and  seated  himself  upon 
the  king's  throne.  He  said  he  was  sitting  there  very 
demurely  when  the  king  and  his-nobles  came  in,  and 
the  king  espying  him,  came  up  to  him  smiling,  and 
patting  him  on  the  head  with  great  fatherly  kindness 
said,  "  My  son,  what  are  you  doing  here  and  where  do 


AUGUSTUS  C.  FRENCH.  101 

you  hail  from  ?"  "  I  answered  him  like  a  patriotic 
and  true-born  American  citizen,  '  May  it  please  your 
majesty — for  I  knew  lie  was  the  king — I  am  a  Yankee 
boy  from  the  United  States  of  America,  and  the  best 
blood  of  the  Revolutionary  patriots  flows  in  my  veins/  " 
said  French.  "Would  you  believe  it?"  he  added, 
"instead  of  making  him  angry,  he  seemed  actually  de- 
lighted. He  had  me  taken  and  treated  to  the  best 
things  the  palace  would  afford,  and  had  me  sent  home 
to  my  parents  in  the  United  States  at  the  expense  of 
the  British  government." 

I  wish  here  to  say  that,  in  my  opinion,  this  Mun- 
chausen  disposition  to  magnify  is  a  disease  like  klep- 
tomania. I  never  knew  but  one  other  man  who  had 
this  disease  as  badly  as  French,  and  that  was  Judge 
William  Wilson,  of  Carmi,  Chief  Justice  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  Illinois  at  that  time.  At  the  dinner 
table  at  Paris,  111.,  on  one  occasion,  when  we  were 
eating  roast  pig,  he  told  the  following  story  for  the 
edification  of  those  who  sat  at  the  table  with  him: 
He  said  he  knew  a  pig  that  was  so  fat  that  you  could 
not  see  its  eyes,  and  you  could  just  see  the  tip  of  its 
nose,  and  that  its  fat  had  swelled  up  its  legs  and  tail 
to  a  considerable  extent,  and  they  had  actually  to  feed 
it  with  a  teaspoon,  and  when  they  killed  it,  it  actually 
rolled  about  over  the  floor  like  a  ball.  We  were 
afraid  to  laugh  at  this  story,  lest  it  might  play  the 
very  d — 1  with  our  cases  when  he  opened  court  after 
dinner. 

I  once  heard  Judge  Wilson,  in  a  conversation  with 
a  wealthy  Englishman  by  the  name  of  Yates,  who  had 
bought  a  prairie  farm,  and  complained  that  he  needed 


102  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

shade  trees,  tell  him  to  get  the  pecan  and  plant  it, 
and  in  a  few  years  (for  it  was  a  tree  of  rapid  growth) 
he  would  have  an  abundance  of  shade,  and  besides,  any 
quantity  of  the  delicious  pecan  nut,  for  they  averaged 
thirty  or  forty  bushels  to  the  tree;  when  everybody 
knows  that  the  pecan  tree,  instead  of  being-  a  tree  of 
rapid  growth,  takes  at  least  twenty  years  to  bring  it 
to  anything  like  maturity;  and  when  in  full  fruition, 
they  don't  average  more  than  a  bushel  of  pecans  to  the 
tree.  This  I  know  of  my  own  personal  knowledge, 
for  I  have  gathered  them  myself  fifty  years  ago. 

I  wish  to  repeat  that  this  disposition  to  exaggerate 
is  a  disease,  for  I  am  sure  that  neither  of  these  men  I 
have  mentioned  would  tell  a  falsehood  that  would 
injure  or  affect  any  man  in  the  world. 

I  have  at  this  place  incidentally  introduced  Judge 
Wilson.  I  will  give  him  a  larger  space  in  these  me- 
moirs in  my  future  pnges.  For  the  present  1  will  dis- 
miss the  Judge  and  Governor  French,  hoping  I  have 
said  nothing,  or  left  what  I  have  said  so  unexplained, 
that  my  readers  will  entertain  an  unfavorable  opinion 
of  them ;  for  there  are  no  men  who  have  passed  away 
of  whom  I  have  kinder  recollections. 


THOMAS  FORD.  103 


THOMAS  FOED. 


|  HE  next  person  whom  I  shall  introduce  to 
the  acquaintance  of  my  readers,  is  Governor 
Thomas  Ford.  His  memory  is  very  dear  to  me. 
In  his  history  of  Illinois  he  vindicates  me  from  the 
charge  made  by  the  Abolitionists  in  1837 — that  I  was 
in  complicity  with  the  mob  that  killed  Lovejoy.  He 
has  done  me  no  more  than  justice.  Mr.  Edward 
Beecher,  a  brother  to  the  celebrated  Henry  Ward 
Beecher,  has  taken  especial  pains,  and  that  recently, 
to  make  it  appear  that  I,  with  my  adherents,  stole  into 
their  Abolition  Convention,  held  in  Upper  Alton  in 
1837,  under  an  invitation  to  all  persons  in  favor  of  the 
immediate  emancipation  to  come  in  and  take  part  in 
the  discussion  and  proceedings  of  that  convention.  This 
statement  he  made  in  a  speech  in  Chicago  after  a  lapse 
of  over  35  years.  There  are  generally  two  views  to  be 
taken  of  a  man's  motives  in  what  he  does  or  says — the 
one  charitable,  the  other  uncharitable.  I  will  take  the 
charitable  view  of  the  subject,  inasmuch  as  I  know 
and  can  prove  by  many  living  witnesses,  that  the  invi- 
tation was  not  to  immediate  emancipationists,  but  to 
"all  persons  in  favor  of  free  discussion."  Under  that 
invitation  a  great  many  of  us  who  were  not  Abolition- 
ists went  into  their  convention,  determined  to  show 


104:  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

the  public  that  we  were  not  afraid  to  discuss  the  ques- 
tion of  political  Abolitionism.  They  elected  their 
chairman,  the  Bev.  Mr.  Blackburn,  and  a  committee 
was  appointed  to  draft  resolutions  for  discussion.  I 
was  one  of  that  committee,  Mr.  Edward  Beecher 
another,  and  the  third  gentleman's  name  I  do  not  now 
recollect. 

They  had  a  string  of  resolutions  already  prepared, 
placing  the  question  on  Scriptural  grounds,  and  they 
asked  me  to  join  them  in  reporting  those  resolutions 
as  the  bases  of  discussion.  They  however  reported 
them  notwithstanding  my  refusal  to  join  in  their 
report. 

I  made  a  minority  report,  in  which  I  presented  a 
few  resolutions  as  the  basis  of  discussion,  in  which  I 
placed  the  question  on  high  legal  and  constitutional 
grounds.  By  this  time  we  had  a  majority  in  the  con- 
vention. The  majority  report  was  rejected  and  mine 
accepted.  We  discussed  the  question  for  over  half  a 
day,  when  it  was  brought  to  a  vote  and  my  resolutions 
were  adopted. 

These  are  the  facts  of  the  case,  and  not  as  Mr. 
Beecher  stated  in  his  speech  at  Chicage.  I  will  there- 
fore charitably  say  that  Mr.  Beecher  has  forgotten  the 
the  facts  as  they  were,  and  has  not  willfully  mis-stated 
them.  He  is  a  very  old  man  now,  and  his  memory 
might  very  easily  have  proved  treacherous  about  mat- 
ters which  occurred  so  long  ago. 

Instead  of  participating  in  the  riot  that  resulted  in 
death  of  Lovejoy,  I,  for  weeks  and  weeks  before  its 
occurrence,  did  all  that  I  could  to  prevent  such  a 
catastrophe  and  bring  about  a  compromise,  which  I 


THOMAS  FORD.  105 

believe,  in  my  heart,  would  Lave  been  accomplished 
but  for  Mr.  Beecher.  I  was  not  in  the  city  at  the 
time  of  the  riot,  having  gone  to  attend  the  Green 
County  Circuit  Court,  and  while  there  the  news  came 
of  the  riot — that  Lovejoy  had  killed  an  outsider  by  the 
name  of  Bishop,  who  was  an  innocent  spectator,  and 
that  Lovejoy  was  almost  immediately  killed  by  some 
one  of  the  outsiders,  the  Abolitionists  having  fortified 
themselves  in  a  warehouse  belonging  to  Godfrey  and 
Gilman,  which  stood  at  the  water's  edge  of  the  Missis- 
sippi River.  I  now  dismiss  this  whole  question,  leav- 
ing to  history  the  task  of  doing  justice. 

Mr.  Ford's  account  of  that  transaction,  in  his  his- 
tory of  Illinois,  is  true.  He  exonerates  me  from  all 
blame  or  censure.  Mr.  Ford,  I  believe,  though  an 
older  man  than  I  was,  was  a  native  of  the  State  of 
Illinois,  born  in  Monroe  county.  He  was  an  excellent 
lawyer,  and  was  a  member  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Illinois  when  there  were  nine  judges,  and  when  those 
judges  performed  circuit  court  duties,  and  held  the 
circuit  courts.  He  presided  on  the  trial  of  the  mur- 
derers of  Col.  Davenport.  He  was  a  terror  to  horse- 
thieves  and  murderers.  He  was  a  warm  and  devoted 
friend,  and  an  equally  bitter  enemy,  as  my  friend  Trum- 
bull  and  others  have  good  reason  to  know. 

At  the  election  in  August,  1842,  he  was  elected  gov- 
ernor over  Joseph  Duncan,  by  a  majority  of  8,313 
votes.  He  was  put  upon  the  track  but  a  few  days 
before  the  election,  to  supply  the  place  of  Adam  AY.  Sny- 
cler,  the  regular  Democratic  nominee,  who  had  recently 
departed  this  life.  During  the  whole  of  the  time 
while  he  was  governor  I  was  a  member  of  the  legis- 


106  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

lature  from  Coles  county,  and  was  often  at  his  house 
and  levees,  and  many  is  the  private  convivial  and 
social  time  we  have  had  together.  My  membership 
continued  after  he  had  ceased  to  be  governor. 

I  remember  on  one  occasion  he  came  to  me  and  told 
me  that  one  I.  N.  Morris,  a  member  from  Adams 
county,  had  prepared  resolutions  and  a  speech  to  assail 
his  official  conduct  while  governor,  and  asked  me  to 
permit  him  to  give  out  to  the  public  that  I  would 
reply  to  Morris,  and  for  every  lick  he  gave  Ford  that 
I  would  give  him  two.  Said  I,  "  my  old  friend,  I  give 
you  leave  to  make  any  use  of  my  name  you  choose,  and. 
shall  be  only  too  glad  if  it  serves  you  any  purpose." 

Ford  did  use  my  name  in  the  manner  indicated,  and 
he  was  not  attacked  by  I.  H".  Morris. 

Poor  fellow !  When  I  was  in  Peoria  many  years  ago, 
he  came  there  with  his  wife  and  family,  in  almost  abject 
poverty,  he  and  his  wife  being  both  far  gone  with  con- 
sumption. But,  to  the  eternal  credit  of  the  wealthy 
people  of  Peoria,  be  it  said,  they,  in  the  most  delicate 
manner  imaginable,  without  Ford  knowing  the  source 
from  whence  it  came,  sent  him  dray  load  after  dray 
load  of  everything  necessary  to  eat  and  wear,  also  fur- 
nishing him  with  fuel,  so  that  his  and  his  wife's  last 
days  were  made  as  comfortable  as  possible.  I  was  told 
that  upon  one  occasion  when  they  came  up  with  sev- 
eral dray  loads  of  bed  clothes,  wearing  apparel  and 
provisions,  Ford  asked  the  drivers  who  had  sent  these 
things.  They  told  him  they  did  not  know:  they  had 
been  directed  to  unload  them  at  Ids  house,  and  that 
they  belonged  to  him.  A  spectator  of  this  scene  said 
that  Ford  wept  like  a  child,  saying,  "  In  God's  name, 


THOMAS  FORD.  107 

what  have  I  ever  done  for  this  people  that  they  should 
thus  load  me  with  acts  of  kindness?" 

Ford  and  his  wife  died  not  very  far  apart.  The 
wealthy  people  of  Peoria  divided  his  children  amongst 
them  and  supported  them  as  if  they  had  been  their 
own,  looking  after  their  culture  and  education. 

Ford  had  a  vein  of  dry  wit  and  humor  in  him,  min- 
gled with  a  great  deal  of  gall  and  bitterness.  I  remem- 
ber his  saying  to  me,  on  one  occasion,  alluding  to  a 
distinguished  man,  whose  name  I  shall  riot  mention, 
who  was  known  for  his  office-seeking  propensities,  and 
his  success  in  getting  a  great  many,  "  Liuder,  what 
does  he  remind  you  of?" 

"  Indeed,  I  don't  know,  Governor." 

"  Well,"  says  he,  in  that  fine,  squeaking  voice  of  his, 
which  all  will  remember  who  knew  him,  "  he  reminds 
me  of  a  d — d  old  breachy  hoss  going  around  a  corn- 
field, hunting  some  place  where  there  is  a  rider  off  the 
fence,  that  he  may  jump  over  and  help  himself." 

One  of  the  principal  objects  which  Ford  had  in 
writing  his  history  of  Illinois,  as  I  heard  him  say  on 
one  or  two  occasions,  was  to  do  justice  to  some  of  the 
men  who  had  taken  part  in  the  Black  Hawk  war,  whom 
he  thought  had  not  been  fairly  treated  or  awarded  their 
due  meed  of  applause — General  Henry,  of  Springfield, 
for  one.  He  swore  that  he  intended  to  strip  the  laurel 
from  two  distinguished  men's  brows  and  lay  it  upon 
the  grave  of  General  Henry. 

Ford  wras  no  half-way  man ;  he  was  either  your  de- 
voted friend  or  your  bitter  enemy.  I  am  proud  and 
happj"  to  say  I  was  always  numbered  amongst  the 
former. 


108 


LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


These  humble  memoirs  can  add  but  little  to  the  fame 
of  Tom  Ford,  but  they  are  the  testimony  which  an 
old  friend  wishes  to  bear  to  his  sterling  worth.  I  now 
take  leave  of  my  old  friend  Ford.  It  is  melancholy  to 
reflect  how  many  of  the  friends  of  my  earlier  days  have 
gone  to  that  bourne  from  whence  no  traveler  returns, 
and  left  me,  as  I  have  said  in  another  place,  an  old  gray- 
headed  man,  living  with  a  new  generation. 


JOSEPH  DUNCAN.  109 


JOSEPH 


fOSEPH  DUNCAN"  was  Governor  of  the  State 
at  the  time  I  landed  in  Illinois,  and  was  also 
Governor  during  the  session  of  1836  and  '37. 
I  remember  his  message  was  a  very  severe  assault  upon 
General  Jackson  and  the  Democratic  party,  which  was 
referred  to  a  select  committee,  of  which  John  A.  Mc- 
Clernand  was  chairman.  As  I  have  mentioned  in  a 
former  part  of  these  pages,  Governor  Duncan  had  been 
for  many  years  a  member  of  Congress  from  this  State; 
was  a  Whig  in  his  politics.  He  was  thought  to  be 
immensely  wealthy,  but  having  been  security  for  his 
brother-in-law,  William  Linn,  Receiver  of  Public  Mon- 
eys at  the  Land  Office  at  Vandalia,  who  proved  to  be  a 
defaulter  to  a  very  large  amount,  Gov.  Duncan  was 
reduced  to  poverty.  It  stripped  him  of  all  his  fine 
lauds  which  he  had  entered  in  the  State  of  Illinois, 
which  some  were  malicious  enough  to  say  he  had 
entered  with  money  furnished  by  his  brother-in-law 
Linn  out  of  the  public  moneys.  How  that  is,  I  don't 
know,  but  certain  it  is  he  did  not  shun  his  liabilities, 
but  gave  up  his  property  like  an  honest  man.  He 
died,  as  I  have  understood,  a  very  devout  Christian, 
and  this  is  about  all  I  now  remember  of  Governor 
Joseph  Duncan. 


110  LINDER'S  HEMIXISCENCES. 


O.  B.  FIOKLTN". 


IT  would  be  very  unbecoming  in  me,  were  I  to 
neglect  to  give  my  old  friend  and  comrade  at 
the  bar,  O.  B.  Ficklin,  a  place  in  these  me- 
moirs. He  was  among  the  first  of  the  lawyers  in  the 
Fourth  Judicial  Circuit  with  whom  I  became  acquaint- 
ed. He  preceded  me  in  our  advent  to  this  State.  He 
was  here  when  I  came,  and  was  Prosecuting  Attorney 
in  Judge  Harlan's  circuit.  He  was  an  ambitious 
young  lawyer  of  limited  education,  but  of  great  perse- 
verance and  determination;  he  had  an'iron  will,  which 
made  him  successful  at  the  bar  and  in  politics.  lie 
was  for  a  long  time  a  member  of  Congress  from  the 
district  in  which  we  both  lived.  When  nearly  forty 
years  of  age,  he  married  a  young  and  accomplished 
lady,  the  daughter  of  Senator  Colquitt  of  Georgia,  a 
man  of  mark  and  decided  talents.  Mrs.  Ficklin  in- 
herited her  father's  talents,  and  she  and  my  family 
were  on  the  most  intimate  terms,  and  my  wife  and 
children  hold  her  in- the  highest  estimation. 

My  associations  and  relations  with  Ficklin  were  per- 
haps more  intimate  and  social  and  of  longer  duration 
than  with  any  other  lawyer  of  the  Wabash  country, 
spreading  over  a  period  of  about  twenty-five  years; 
and  perhaps  the  happiest  moments  of  my  life  were  in 


O.    B.    FlCKLItf.  Ill 

our  unrestrained  conversation  when  riding  together 
qn  horseback,  going  around  the  circuit. 

Ficklin  had  a  considerable  vein  of  dry  drollery  about 
him,  accompanied  by  a  look  and  a  comical  lifting  up 
of  his  eyebrows  that  would  provoke  a  laugh  from  an 
anchorite.  One  little  incident  I  will  relate  here,  which 
amused  me  very  much  at  the  time.  We  were  going 
to  the  Wayne  county  Circuit  Court,  in  the  month  of 
March,  on  horseback,  together.  We  came  to  the  Little 
Wa bash  river,  which  was  very  much  swollen  by  the  re- 
cent freshets,  and  as  we  were  bound  next  day  to  reach 
our  destination,  we  concluded  that  our  only  alternative 
was  to  strip  ourselves,  tie  our  clothes  upon  our  shoulders 
and  swim  our  horses  across, which  preparation  we  speed- 
dily  made;  and  when  we  were  ready  to  plunge  in,  I  told 
Ficklin  to  lead  the  way,  as  he  was  the  oldest.  Giving  me 
the  most  comical  look  I  ever  saw,  he  said,  "  No,  Linder, 
that  won't  do;  you  have  recently  joined  the  church 
(which  was  true),  and  made  your  calling  and  election 
sure,  and  if  you  should  be  drowned  it  would  give  you 
a  speedy  passport  to  heaven,  and  give  me,  a  great  sin- 
ner, a  further  time  for  repentance." 

I  laughed  and  plunged  in,  and  found  the  writer  shal- 
lower than  I  expected,  my  horse  having  to  swim  only 
about  ten  feet.  My  horse  landed  me  safely  on  the  op- 
posite shore;  Ficklin  followed,  and  after  dressing  our- 
selves we  struck  for  Fairfield,  the  county  seat  of  Wayne, 
and  traveled  till  nearly  twelve  o'clock  at  night,  and  put 
up  at  a  poor  man's  cabin,  who  treated  us  very  hospi- 
tably, his  wife  cooking  us  a  coarse  supper  of  fat  meat, 
corn  bread,  and  coffee  made  from  parched  buckwheat, 
without  sugar  or  cream;  and  I  declare  it  was  the  best 


112  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

rneal  of  victuals  I  ever  ate,  not  having  tasted  a  mouth- 
ful since  early  that  morning.  To  show  yon  the  IcincU 
ness  and  hospitality  of  these  poor  and  humble  people, 
they  actually  gave  us  the  only  feather  bed  they  had, 
and  slept,  themselves,  on.  the  floor.  I  objected  to  rob- 
bing them  of  their  bed,  but  they  would  not  listen  to 
me.  We  had  a  sound  sleep,  you  may  well  imagine; 
got  our  breakfast  in  the  morning,  and  went  on  to  Fair- 
field. 

During  all  this  twenty-five  years,  when  Ficklin  and 
I  Tode  the  circuit  together,  we  were  often  as  lawyers 
associated  in  the  same  causes,  and  not  infrequently 
opposed  to  each  other.  Ficklin  was  a  boon  companion, 
a  little  vain,  to  be  sure,  as  perhaps  I  was  myself.  He 
could  sing  as  good  a  song  as  any  man  I  ever  knew, 
and  tell  as  good  a  story.  He  was  the  prince  of  good 
fellows,  and  though  we  were  rivals  for  political  prefer- 
ments, and  he  generally  the  successful  one,  I  have 
nothing  now  but  the  kindliest  recollections  of  O.  B. 
Ficklin.  If  these  memoirs  ever  meet  his  eye,  I  hope 
he  will  be  satisfied  that  I  have  tried  to  do  him  justice 
in  what  I  have  written.  I  might  have  said  a  good 
deal  more,  tending  to  show  the  claims  of  Mr.  Ficklin 
to  the  love  and  respect  of  his  old  friends  and  fellow- 
citizens;  let  this,  however,  for  the  present  suffice. 
Old  friend,  I  bid  you  good-bye! 


AARON  SHAW.  113 


AABOlsT  SHAW, 


the  men  with  whom  I  first  became 
acquainted  on  tli£  Fourth  Judicial  Circuit  in 
1836,  was  the  Hon.  Aaron  Shaw,  of  Lawrence- 
ville,  Illinois,  a  man  of  considerable  parts — more  as 
an  advocate  than  as  a  lawyer.  He  is  still  living,  and 
I  think  he  is  now  upon  the  circuit  bench,  though  of 
this  I  am  not  certain ;  but  he  was  Judge  of  the  circuit 

O- 

court  some  few  years  ago.  He  was  a  warm  and  im- 
passioned speaker,  and  a  very  warm  and  devoted  friend 
to  those  he  liked,  and,  like  Governor  Ford,  he  was  a 
tolerably  bitter  enemy.  He  would  fight  at  the  drop 
of  a  hat,  and  woe  betide  the  man  who  undertook  to 
insult  him!  I  would  as  soon  have  waked  the  lion 
from  his  lair  as  to  have  aroused  the  anger  of  Aaron 
Shaw;  but  when  he  was  not  angered,  but  in  a  social 
mood,  he  was  one  of  the  most  agreeable  men  I  ever 
knew.  He  loved  his  friends  and  hated  his  enemies, 
lie  was  uo  half-way  man,  but  spoke  out  his  sentiments 
boldly  and  freely  on  every  subject.  I  served  with  him 
in  the  legislature  (I  think  it  was  in  1846)  when  the 
temperance  question  came  before  us.  Shaw  espoused 
it  with  great  zeal  and  fervor,  and  carried  me  with  him 
for  the  temperance  cause,  and  I  regret  that  I  have  not 
stood  by  it  to  the  present  day.  His  speech  upon  that 
8 


114  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

occasion  was  a  terrible  and  scorching  rebuke  to  saloon- 
keepers. It  showed  how  they  would  smile  and  use 
their  blandishments  to  entice  into  their  dead-falls  some 
warm-hearted  and  unwary  man,  and  when  they  had 
robbed  him  of  all  the  money  he  had  arid  made  a  beg- 
gar and  a  drunkard  of  him,  they  would  kick  him  out 
of  doors  and  tell  him  to  clear  himself  out  of  their 
house,  as  a  vagabond  and  loafer.  In  this  speech  of  his 
there  was  more  truth  than  poetry. 

I  know  but  little  more  of  Aaron  Shaw.  I  know  for 
a  long  time  he  was  prosecuting  Attorney  on  the  Fourth 
Judicial  Circuit,  and  made  a  very  efficient  and  vigor- 
ous prosecutor.  He  had  a  beautiful  and  elegant  wife, 
and  their  house  was  the  centre  of  hospitality  and  head- 
quarters for  his  professional  friends.  His  dinners  and 
social  parties  were  of  the  most  inviting  and  enticing 
character. 


WM.  F.  THORNTON.  115 


WM.  F.  THOEKTOK 


[  [IE  next  person  I  wish  to  notice,  though  I  am 
really  afraid  to  introduce  him,  lest  I  should  not 
do  him  full  justice,  is  the  late  William  F. 
Thornton,  of  Shelbyville,  whom  I  have  already  inci- 
dentally noticed  in  connection  with  the  borrowing  of 
money  in  England  on  behalf  of  the  Illinois  and  Mich- 
igan canal. 

General  Thornton  was  here  before  I  came  to  the 
State.  The  first  time  I  ever  saw  him  was  at  the  ses- 
sion of  1836  arid  1837  of  the  Illinois  Legislature.  He 
addressed  us  frequently  from  the  lobby  on  the  subject 
of  the  construction  of  the  said  canal.  One  set  of  poli- 
ticians were  for  what  was  called  the  shallow-cut,  and 
another  set  for  the  deep-cut,  to  which  latter  class  Gen- 
eral Thornton  belonged.  His  speeches  were  the  most 
interesting  and  scientific  that  I  ever  heard.  He  was 
perfectly  at  home  on  all  geological  questions,  and  was 
listened  to  with  profound  attention  and  silence  while 
speaking,  during  which  time  you  could  have  heard  a 
pin  fall.  He  failed  to  carry  his  views  at  that  time, 
but  they  have  since  been  adopted,  and  the  deep-cut 
system  has  prevailed,  and  the  waters  of  Lake  Michigan 
have  been  let  into  the  canal,  the  current  of  Chicago 
river  reversed,  and  the  waters  of  Lake  Michigan  now 


116  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

flow  south  through  the  canal  into  the  Illinois  river, 
and  from  thence  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

General  Thornton  has  but  recently  departed  this  life, 
aged  nearly  ninety.  He  has  left  a  large  estate,  worth 
nearly  three  millions  of  dollars. 

General  Thornton  might  be  said  to  be  a  walking  bud- 
get of  facts  and  statistics.  He  was  the  most  interesting 

o  o 

conversationalist  I  ever  heard,  and  equally  interesting 
as  a  public  speaker.  Nobody  attempted  to  talk  in  his 
presence,  but  only  sat  still  and  listened  to  him. 

General  Thornton  I  think  was  at  the  battle  of  Bla- 
densburg,  in  the  war  of  1812,  under  Col.  Monroe,  after- 
wards President  of  the  United  States.  He  commanded 
a  company  there,  1  think.  He  was  a  chivalrous  and 
gallant  man,  and  an  intelligent  stranger,  to  look  at 
him  and  hear  him  talk,  would  say,  "  what  a  very  great 
man  he  is." 

I  do  not  know  now' which  of  our  States  was  the  na- 
tjve  place  of  General  Thornton,  but  I  think  it  was 
Maryland.  I  know  that  for  many  years  he  lived  in 
Kentucky,  and  married  his  wife  there,  who  was  a  most 
amiable  woman.  I  believe  she  is  still  living.  She  was 
a  member  of  the  old  Ironside  Baptist  Church,  and 
General  Thornton  always  threw  open  his  doors  to  the 
preachers  of  that  denomination. 

General  Thornton  was  a  Whig.  He  was  violently 
opposed  to  Folk's  Mexican  war,  and  the  way  in  which 
he  managed  it.  We  were  holding  court  at  Shelby  ville 
at  the  time  that  Scott  with  his  little  army  was  in  the 
valley  of  Mexico,  from  whom  we  had  not  heard  for 
several  weeks,  and  there  was  a  prevailing  opinion  among 
the  Whigs,  that  for  want  of  reinforcements  he  was 


Wat.  F.  THORNTON.  117 

hemmed  in,  and  that  he  and  his  army  were  prisoners 
of  war  in  the  city  of  Mexico.  General  Thornton  boldly 
asserted  that  it  was  so,  and  that  Polk  had  done  it  for 
the  express  purpose  of  sacrificing  a  great  Whig  leader. 
He  walked  the  floor  at  Tacket's  hotel  in  a  perfect  fu- 
ror, and  addressing  himself  to  Judge  Treat,  who  was 
a  Democrat  and  a  friend  of  Folk's,  said:  "  I  tell  you, 
Judge  Treat,  at  this  moment  General  Scott  and  his 
whole  army  are  prisoners  of  war  in  the  city  of  Mexico; 

all  of  which  is  chargeable  to  this  d d  administration 

of  Folk's."  Thereupon  General  Thornton  left. 

The  next  morning  the  newspapers  brought  authentic 
news  of  Scott  and  his  little  army.  It  brought  the 
welcome  intelligence  that  they  had  stornied'  the  city 
of  Mexico,  captured  it,  and  that  the  stars  and  stripes 
had  been  run  up  on  the  walls  of  the  Montezumas,  and 
were  then  kissing  the  mild  breezes  of  the  city  of  Mex- 
ico. Judge  Treat  immediately  sent  for  General 
Thornton,  who  quickly  made  his  appearance,  saying, 
"  Judge  Treat,  yon  sent  for  me?" 

"Yes,  General,"  said  the  Judge,  "We  have  glorious 
news  from  Mexico — General  Scott  has  captured  the 
city,  and  our  flag  is  now  floating  from  the  Palace  of 
the  Montezumas." 

General  Thornton's  eyes  blazed  like  lightning,  and 
slapping  his  fist  in  his  hand,  he  said:  "Hurrah  for 
General  Scott!  By  G-cl,  I  told  you  so.  I  knew  he 
would  whip  them  if  he  had  half  a  chance." 

This  literally  convulsed  us  all  with  laughter,  but 
General  Thornton  did  not  then  seem  to  appreciate 
that  it  was  produced  by  his  inconsistency. 

General  Thornton  resided  for  a  considerable  time 


118  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

in  the  city  of  "Washington;  he  published  a  small  paper 
there  when  quite  a  young  man,  as  he  himself  informed 
me.  He  was  a  great  friend  and  admirer  of  Henry 
Clay.  It  would  have  done  your  heart  good  to  have 
heard  General  Thornton  deliver  one  of  his  eulogies 
upon  the  great  commoner  of  Kentucky.  He  was  ac- 
quainted with  all  the  distinguished  men  that  figured 
at  Washington  in  the  two  houses  of  Congress  in  1812, 
and  from  that  period  down  to  1840.  He  knew  most 
of  them  personally,  and  has  given  me  most  graphic 
descriptions  of  them. 

I  met  General  Thornton  in  a  great  many  Whig 
conventions,  where  we  both  addressed  the  vast  multi- 
tudes assembled  on  those  occasions.  At  a  great  mass 
meeting  held  at  Yandalia  in  184-1,  he  and  Lincoln  and 
myself  were  appointed  to  address  the  vast  multitudes 
from  the  stand,  which  had  been  erected  on  the  east  side 
of  the  old  State  House.  This,  as  I  remember,  was  in 
the  summer,  and  the  committee  of  arrangements  had 
provided  shade  and  seats  covering  acres  of  ground. 
The  shade  consisted  of  green  bushes  covering  a  sort 
of  scaffolding.  General  Thornton  was  assigned  to 
speak  upon  the  subject  of  the  currency,  Lincoln  upon 
the  Tariff,  and  I  to  close,  ranging  through  all  the  sub- 
jects then  under  discussion  between  the  two  great 
parties,  Whig  and  Democratic.  General  Thornton's 
speeches,  to  those  who  heard  him,  seemed  like  reading 
from  some  great  author,  who  knew  all  .he  was  writing 
about.  He  was  essentially  instructive,  furnishing  facts 
and  data  for  other  speakers  to  elaborate  thereafter. 

I  was  nominated,  on  his  motion,  at  that  mass  meet- 
ing to  run  against  O.  B.  Ficklin  for  Congress,  in  our 


WM.  F.  THORNTON.  119 

district.  We  had  a  glorious  time  of  it  at  this  mass 
meeting.  Mv  wife  and  two  little  boys  were  with  me 

CTJ  •/  «/ 

—  one  about  six  and  the  other  a  little  over  two  years 
old.  We  stopped  with  Robert  Blackwell,  a  glorious 
old  Whig,  the  uncle  of  the  late  "Robert  Blackwell, 
a  distinguished  lawyer,  who  died  in  the  city  of  Chi- 
cago some  eight  or  ten  years  ago. 

I  was  in  the  hey-day  of  life,  being  in  the  very  prime 
of  my  youthful  manhood,  and  though  my  party  had 
not  the  strength  to  elect  me  to  Congress,  I  never 
mourned  over  my  defeat,  but  I  did  shed  tears — hot, 
burning  tears — over  the  defeat  of  Mr.  Clay,  who  was 
the  Whig  candidate  for  President,  who  would  have 
been  elected  had  not  the  Abolitionists  run  a  ticket  of 
their  own  in  the  State  of  New  York,  and  that  defeated 
him  by  a  few  votes.  And,  oh,  what  a  President  he 
would  have  made!  It  seems  to  be  a  part  of  the  his- 
tory of  this  country,  since  the  days  of  Madison,  Mon- 
roe and  Jackson,  that  no  man  of  pre-eminent  ability 
should  ever  be  President  of  the  United  States.  Henry 
Clay,  Daniel  Webster  and  John  C.  Calhoun,  who  did 
more  than  any  three  men  of  their  day  to  adorn  and 
embellish  the  history  of  their  country,  were  quietly 
laid  upon  the  shelf,  and  men  of  second-rate  talents, 
with  the  exception  of  Lincoln,  have  from  that  day  to 
this  filled  the  presidential  chair. 

I  was  one  of  the  Clay  candidates  for  election  in 
1844,  as  well  as  a  candidate  for  Congress,  and  besides 
addressing  vast  crowds  in  my  own  State,  I  was  sent 
for  to  come  into  Indiana  to  address  the  people  there. 
I  remember  of  speaking  to  a  vast  crowd  in  Princeton, 
Indiana,  in  connection  with  the  late  Jos  Marshall,  of 


120  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

Madison,  Indiana,  and  I  think  I  never  heard  a  greater 
orator.  He  looked  the  great  man.  and  physically  and 
intellectually  presented  to  his  audience  a  sort  of  leonine 
aspect.  He  had  few  equals,  if  any,  in  the  west,  and  I 
think  no  superior;  but  death,  that  spares  none  of  us, 
has  called  him  away,  but  he  will  be  long  remembered 
by  the  people  of  Indiana. 

The  reader  must  pardon  this  digression,  as  I  was 
giving  a  sketch  of  General  Thornton. 

That  convention  closed  very  harmoniously,  and  my 
acquaintance  with  General  Thornton  continued  for 
many  years  afterwards.  He  was  the  father-in-law  of 
Anthony  Thornton,  late  Supreme  Judge  of  the  State 
of  Illinois,  a  man  of  marked  ability  and  an  excellent 
lawyer,  whom  I  may  take  occasion  to  notice  more 
extensively  in  these  pages. 

I  feel  loth  to  dismiss  General  Thornton  at  this  place, 
feeling  that  perhaps  I  have  not  done  him  full  justice; 
but  I  take  pleasure  in  saying  here  that  he  had  read 
more  and  knew  more  than  all  of  us,  and  none  of  us  ever 
hesitated  (of  the  Whig  party)  to  give  him  the  first 
place  in  our  ranks.  Thus  much  for  General  Thornton. 
He  was  my  friend,  and  I  loved  him,  but  for  the  present 
I  take  leave  of  him.  If  he  comes  in  again,  it  will  be 
incidentally. 


JOSEPH  GILLESPIE  121 


JOSEPH    GILLESPIE. 


man  whose  name  I  desire  to  intro- 
duce at  this  point,  and  whom  I  met  at  the 
Edwardsville  Circuit  Court  in  1837,  was  Joe 
Gillespie,  of  Madison  county,  Illinois.  He  was  then  a 
young  man,  and  not  eminent  as  he  afterwards  became, 
but  it  struck  me  then  that  he  had  the  stuff  in  him  to 
make  a  man,  and  I  found  out  afterwards  that  I  was 
not  mistaken.  We  formed  an  acquaintance  and  friend- 
ship then  that  has  lasted  through  many  years  and 
grown  with  our  age,  and  if  there  is  any  man  in  Illinois 
who  is  no  blood  relation  of  mine,  whom  I  love  and 
esteem  more  than  Joe,  I  cannot  call  him  to  mind  at 
this  moment. 

In  after  years  we  met  in  the  Legislature  of  Illinois 
— he  in  the  Senate  and  I  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives. We  were  mutually  united  in  our  efforts  to  get 
a  railroad  from  Terre  Haute  to  Alton,  through  Edgar, 
Coles,  Shelby,  Montgomery,  Macoupin  and  Madison, 
which  the  reader  will  discover  was  not  a  straight  road, 
and  we  had  to  fight  a  contemplated  rival  road  from 
Terre  Haute  on  a  straight  line  to  St.  Louis.  We,  Joe 
in  the  Senate  and  I  in  the  House,  contended  that  it 
should  be  the  policy  of  the  State;of  Illinois  to  build  up 
towns  and  cities  at  the  termini  of  her  railroads,  and 


122  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

not  allow  roads  to  be  constructed  through  it  so  termi- 
nating as  to  build  up  a  city  outside  of  its  limits  that 
would  crush  the  cities  on  our  western  borders.  Our 
object  was  to  build  up  Alton,  and  the  reader  will  per- 
ceive that  a  road  from  Terre  Haute  to  a  point  opposite 
St.  Louis  would  overshadow  our  road  and  prevent  its 
construction.  Hence,  all  our  efforts  were  directed  to 
prevent  their  getting  a  charter  till  our  road  was  com- 
pleted, which  we  accomplished,  Joe  and  I  standing 
shoulder  to  shoulder  in  this  railroad  war. 

I  have  some  anecdotes  to  relate  in  reference  to  friend 
Joe  which  I  defer  to  another  page.  He  was  a  very 
social,  kind-hearted  man ;  a  plebeian  by  birth,  not  of 
liberal  education,  but  possessing  a  very  strong  mind. 
He  had  read  Coke's  Commentaries  on  Lyttleton,  and 
had  made  himself  familiar  with  the  black-letter  law 
of  England.  He  had  studied  Chitty  on  Pleading  with 
passionate  fondness,  and  was  perfectly  at  home  in  the 
science  of  pleading.  He  was  recently  on  the  circuit 
court  bench  in  his  circuit,  and  many  of  the  lawyers  of 
that  circuit  have  told  me  that  he  made  one  of  the  best 
judges  they  ever  practiced  before.  Using  rather  a  vul- 
gar phrase,  "  You  might  bet  your  bottom  dollar  on  his 
honesty."  He  has  been  succeeded  by  William  Snyder, 
a  very  intelligent  and  well-read  lawyer,  and  an  honest 
man,  but  I  do  not  believe  that  he  will  make  a  better 
judge  than  my  old  friend  Gillespie. 

I  think  it  was  in  the  year  1841,  the  times  being  very 
hard  and  money  scarce,  1  concluded  to  try  my  luck  in 
my  old  Mississippi  circuit.  I  mounted  my  pacing 
horse  and  struck  for  fKaskaskia,  by  the  way  of  Nash- 
ville, Washington  county,  Ills.,  where  I  expected  to 


JOSEPH  GILLESPIE.  123 

find  the  court  in  session,  a  distance  of  over  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  miles  from  Charleston,  my  home. 
This  was  in  the  early  part  of  the  fall  of  the  year.  I 
noticed,  when  passing  over  one  of  the  prairies  through 
which  my  road  lay,  a  singular  fibrous  little  vine  which 
intertwined  itself  around  the  tops  of  the  prairie  grass 
and  had  no  connection  by  root  with  the  ground.  I 
asked  a  young  man  whom  I  met  in  the  road  if  he  knew 
what  that  vine  was.  He  said  they  called  it  the  "  love 
vine."  It  was  a  very  singular  phenomenon  to  me, 
having  no  more  connection  with  the  ground  than  a 
spider's  web. 

I  went  on  my  way  towards  my  destination,  and  met 
the  St.  Louis  stage  going  east,  and  after  it  had  passed 
me  about  seventy-five  yards,  I  heard  some  one  crying 
out  behind  me,  in  broad  Irish  brogue,  "  Lirithur,  Lin- 
thur,  Linthur!"  I  turned  around  and  perceived  the 
stage  had  stopped,  and  seeing  a  man's  head  protruding 
from  the  stage  window,  I  rode  up  and  found  it  to  be 
the  smiling  face  of  my  old  Hibernian  friend,  General 
James  Shields,  with  whom  I  conversed  about  fifteen 
minutes,  who  told  me  he  was  going  to  "Washington 
City.  We  shook  hands  and  parted. 

I  arrived  safely  at  Nashville;  found  the  court  in 
session,  Judge  Breese  presiding,  and  I  was  overjoyed 
to  find  attending  this  court  my  friend  Joe  Gillespie. 
By  the  influence  of  one  or  two  of  my  old  friends  with 
whom  •!  had  served  in  the  legislature  of  1836  and 
1837, 1  got  several  fees — enough  to  pay  mine  and  Joe's 
tavern  bill — Joe  and  I  having  formed  a  sort  of  tem- 
porary partnership.  It  was  agreed  between  us  that 
Joe  should  puff  me  up  as  one  of  the  greatest  lawyers 


124:  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

and  advocates  that  ever  made  a  track  in  Southern 
Illinois;  and  we  were  to  divide  the  spoils  between  us. 

The  next  court  was  at  Kaskaskia,  and  we  learned 
on  the  way  that  our  hotel  keeper,  an  Englishman, 
whose  name  I  can't  call  to  mind  at  this  time,  where 
we  all  contemplated  putting  up,  had  a  lawsuit  in  which 
he  was  plaintiff.  It  seems  that  some  young  buck  in 
the  town  had  had  a  fight  with  him  (I  now  remember 
the  hotel-keeper's  name — it  was  Vandeevers),  and  in 
that  fight  Vandeevers  had  got  a  piece  of  his  ear  bit 
off.  Joe  Gillespie  turned  to  me  as  we  were  riding 
along  the  road,  and  said,  "  Lin der,  by  h-11,  there's  a 
chance  to  pay  our  hotel  bill,  and  I'll  bait  my  hook  and 
go  for  him  in  half  an  hour  after  we  land.  Joe  was  as 
good  as  his  word,  and  told  the  hotel-keeper  what  an 
almighty  big  lawyer  I  was,  and  that  he  ought  to 
employ  me  as  soon  as  possible,  and  not  let  the  other 
side  get  ahead  of  him;  but  Yandeevers  would  not  bite 
at  the  bait,  but  the  defendant  and  his  friends  came  and 
gave  me  a  fee  of  twenty  dollars  to  defend  him.  This 
was  getting  into  a  very  awkward  predicament,  to  appear 
against  my  landlord,  but  there  was  no  help  for  it.  It 
became  known  that  I  was  employed  for  the  defense, 
and  the  court  house  was  crowded  with  the  citizens  of 
Kaskaskia,  ladies  and  gentlemen — among  the  rest, 
Judge  Pope  and  his  two  beautiful  daughters. 

Vandeevers  began  to  repent  when  it  was  too  late; 
but  to  make  up  the  loss  he  employed  Lyman  Tru.m- 
bull  to  assist  his  lawyer,  David  J.  Baker,  Avho  was 
called  the  Lord  Coke  of  Illinois.  But  with  all  his 
skill  in  pleading,  he  made  a  great  mistake  in  framing 
his  declaration.  He  had  inserted  but  a  single  count. 


JOSEPH  GILLESPIE.  125 

I  plead  son  assault.  The  proof  showed  that  there  had 
been  two  fights  on  the  same  day  between  the  parties, 
with  an  interval  of  about  half  an  hour  between  them. 
Under  the  pleading,  I  had  the  opening  and  closing. 
The  rule  of  law  in  such  a  case  is,  and  always  has  been, 
under  a  plea  like  mine,  if  the  defendant  shows  that 
there  was  one  fight  in  which  the  plaintiff  made  the 
first  assault  the  jury  must  find  for  the  defendant^ 
though  there  might  have  been  half  a  dozen  other  fights 
in  which  the  defendant  was  the  aggressor;  and  Judge 
Breese  so  ruled  and  instructed  the  jury,  on  my  motion, 
and  they  returned  a  verdict  for  the  defendant;  but  the 
argument  of  the  case  before  the  jury  was  the  great 
treat  to  the  spectators  present.  Yandeever's  lawyers 
had  magnified  his  wrongs  and  injuries  before  the  jury, 
complaining  that  he  had  been  disfigured  and  shorn  of 
his  fair  proportions,  having  a  piece  of  one  of  his  ears 
bitten  off,  and  otherwise  wounded,  bruised  and  mal- 
treated. In  my  closing  remarks,  knowing  that  I  was 
safe  on  the  law  of  the  case,  I  determined  to  give  the 
plaintiff  the  hot  end  of  the  poker,  so  I  didn't  spare 
friend  Boniface.  "  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,"  says  I, 
u  My  client  did  not  intend  to  disfigure  this  man  by 
biting  off  his  ear,  as  he  has  told  me  himself.  He 
always  knew  that  he  had  too  much  ears,  and  his  only 
object  was  to  trim  him  up  and  make  him  look  more 
like  a  man  than  a  jackass.  Look  at  him,  gentlemen 
of  the  jury,  and  tell  me  if  he  was  not  a  fool  for  not 
lying  still  and  allowing  my  client  to  finish  up  the  job 
he  had  commenced,  by  trimming  his  other  ear." 

I  went  on  in  this  ludicrous  strain,  to  the  great  amuse- 
ment of  the  spectators,  and  though  Breese  stormed 


126  LINDEE'S  REMINISCENCES. 

and  raved,  neither  lie  nor  his  sheriff  could  prevent  the 
loud  peals  of  laughter  that  shook  the  old  Kaskaskia 
court  house.  At  that  time  Kaskaskia  had  the  most 
refined  and  cultivated  society  in  the  State  of  Illinois, 
of  whom  a  large  proportion  were  present  on  this  occa- 
sion. Judge  Pope  went  into  a  perfect  paroxysm  of 
laughter.  He  was  a  Kentuckian,  and  a  great  friend 
of  mine.  He  made  a  party  thereafter  expressly  in 
ray  honor,  where  the  court  and  all  the  bar  were  invited, 
which  was  graced  by  the  elite,  beauty  and  fashion  of 
the  town.  It  was  not  one  of  those  empty  parties 
where  they  hand  around  a  little  cake  and  other  things 
which  make  a  man  dyspeptic;  but  it  was  a  supper, 
with  roast  turkey,  wild  fowl,  venison  and  other  things 
which  make  my  mouth  water  now  to  think  of.  But 
to  return  to  the  trial. 

After  the  jury  had  brought  in  their  verdict  for  the 
defendant,  and  Baker  and  Trumbull  had  done  their 
utmost  to  obtain  a  new  trial,  and  failed,  Vandeevers 
left  the  court  house  in  a  perfect  furor,  swearing  ven- 
geance against  me  when  I  should  next  make  my 
appearance  at  his  table;  but  I  had  hosts  of  friends, 
who,  together  with  my  friend,  Joe  Gillespie,  went  to 
him  and  told  him  if  he  did  not  want  his  other  ear 
trimmed  he  had  better  let  me  alone.  He  was  not  slow 
in  taking  the  hint,  and  taking  counsel  from  his  fears, 
when  I  made  my  appearance  at  the  next  meal  he 
treated  me  with  more  consideration  than  he  had  ever 
done  before.  He  turned  to  Gillespie,  who  sat  near 
me,  and  said: 

"  If  I  had  taken  your  advice,  I  might  have  avoided 
this  result." 


JOSEPH  GILLESPIE.  127 

"Yes,"  said  Joe,  in  his  quiet  way,  "but  you  was 
too  d — d  a  fool,  Varideevers,  to  take  it."  He  laughed 
heartily  over  Joe's  reply. 

Joe  and  I  had  enough  money  to  pay  our  bills,  and  a 
surplus  left  with  which  to  settle  our  bills  with  our  land- 
lord on  ahead  of  us. 

We  traveled  from  there  on  up  to  Monroe  county, 
Waterloo  being  the  county  seat.  We  made  some  fees 
there,  and  from  there  we  went  to  Belleville,  St.  Clair 
county,  and  after  court  was  over  there,  Joe  and  I 
jogged  on  together  socially  to  Edwardsville,Joe's  home. 
Here  I  made  several  hundred  dollars. 

Joe  and  I  were  more  like  brothers  than  any  two  men 
who  ever  lived  who  were  not  brothers.  I  met  him 
during  the  last  presidential  election,  at  Edwardsville. 
We  spent  a  whole  Sunday  together,  talking  over  old 
times,  and  you  may  rest  assured  we  had  a  hearty  laugh 
over  the  Vandeever  trial.  While  it  is  pleasant  to  bring 
up  these  old  reminiscences,  yet,  worthy  reader,  there 
is  a  bitter  mingled  with  the  sweet:  and  that  is  the 
thought  that  in  a  short  time  we  must  pass  away — and 
where  will  we  be?  Echo  answers,  "Where?"  I  now 
take  leave  of  my  dear  old  friend,  Gillespie.  If  these 
memoirs  should  meet  his  eye  after  I  am  gone,  I  know 
lie  will  shed  a  tear  to  my  memory. 


128  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


PEAESOIsS. 


OWE  it  to  my  own  feelings,  and  old  friend- 
ship, to  introduce  here  an  old  friend  of  mine 
who  has  lately  departed  this  life — I  mean  the 
Hon.  John  Pearsons,  late  of  Danville,  111.  Oar  ac- 
quaintance commenced  in  1836,  on  Judge  Harlan's 
circuit.  I  first  met  him  at  the  Edgar  County  Circuit 
Court,  in  the  fall  of  1836.  We  traveled  round  the 
circuit  together,  and  were  often  associated  together  in 
the  same  causes.  I  had  been  elected  to  the  legislature 
at  the  previous  August  election,  and  being  both  Dem- 
ocrats, in  jogging  along  on  horseback  together,  he 
arranged  my  programme  in  the  coining  winter's  ses- 
sion. I  remember  his  saying  to  me,  "  There  will  be 
an  attorney-general  to  elect  by  the  legislature  at  the 
coming  session,  and  you  must  fill  that  office."  I 
laughed  at  the  time,  and  told  him  I  thought  it  a  wild 
and  Utopian  scheme,  but  it  nevertheless  came  to  pass. 
Pearsons  made  his  appearance  at  that  session  of  the 
legislature,  and  took  an  active  part  in  promoting  my 
election.  We  members  from  the  Wabash  country 
took  him  up  and  elected  him  Judge  of  the  circuit 
court,  of  which  Chicago,  in  Cook  county,  was  a  part. 
This  gave  great  often se  to  the  lawyers  of  Chicago — 
Butterfield,  Scammon  and  others — who,  having  many 


JOHN  PEARSONS.  129 

good  lawyers  amongst  them,  thought  we  had  no  right 
to  import  a  judge  from  the  Wabash  country,  outside 
of  their  circuit,  a  stranger  to  their  lawyers  and  their 

O  t/ 

people.  But  I  remember  that  we  of  the  Wabash  at 
that  time,  had  no  great  love  for  these  Yankee  Aboli- 
tion lawyers.  Some  of  our  members  from  Judge  Har- 
lan's  circuit  who  did  not  like  Pearsons  voted  for  him 
to  get  rid  of  him.  I  recollect  old  Jonathan  Mills,  who 
was  the  member  from  Edwards  or  Wayne,  and  I  don't 
now  remember  which,  who  had  very  little  love  for 
Pearsons,  voted  for  him.  He  said  he  had  two  objects 
to  accomplish — one  was  to  get  him  out  of  our  circuit, 
and  the  other  was  to  annoy  the  d d  Yankee  Abo- 
lition lawyers  of  Chicago.  But  Pearsons  had  better 
never  have  accepted  the  office,  for  they  made  his  seat 
so  hot  for  him  that  he  was  forced  to  resign  before  his 
time  expired.  I  remember  that  while  he  was  on  the 
bench,  before  he  resigned,  Scam  m  on  or  Butterfield,  who 
had  taken  exceptions  to  some  of  his  rulings,  presented 
him  with  a  bill  of  exceptions,  which  he  refused  to  sign, 
and  they  finally  obtained  a  peremptory  mandamus 
upon  him,  commanding  him  to  sign  it,  which  he  fail- 
ing or  refusing  to  do,  the  Supreme  Court  issued  its 
attachment  against  him,  and  the  sheriif  followed  him 
and  arrested  him  in  Clay  county,  111.,  and  brought 
him  before  the  Supreme  Court,  and  he  was  fined  the 
sum  of  one  hundred  dollars,  which  I  got  the  legisla- 
ture, when  I  was  a  member  in  1846  or  1847,  to  re-pay 
him  with  interest;  and  on  that  occasion  I  handled 
those  Chicago  lawyers  without  gloves,  which  Scarnmou 
remembers  to  this  day. 

Pearsons  was  a  very  warm  friend  and  an  uncoinpro- 
9 


130  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

mising  enemy.  He  was  kind  and  charitable,  and 
when  the  news  came  from  the  South  some  few  years  ago 
that  they  were  suffering  for  want  of  food,  Pearsons  got 
up  a  cargo  of  corn  and  other  provisions,  and  had  them 
transported  at  his  own  expense  to  Atlanta,  Georgia, 
and  distributed  them  amongst  the  needy,  which  must 
have  cost  him  several  thousand  dollars. 

He  departed  this  life  a  few  months  ago,  leaving  a 
very  handsome  estate  to  his  family.  It  might  be  said 
of  him,  if  it  were  not  sacrilegious,  that  "  he  wras  a  man 
of  sorrow  and  acquainted  with  grief."  He  had  some 
tragical  occurrences  in  his  family,  which  were  a  sore 
trial  to  him — that  required  all  his  patience  and  forti- 
tude to 'endure;  but  he  proved  equal  to  the  occasion, 
and  has  now  gone  to  his  last  account,  where,  I  trust, 
he  will  be  dealt  with  with  that  mercy  which  he  showed 
to  others.  If  he  had  his  faults,  he  also  had  his  virtues, 
the  lattev  of  which,  I  think,  greatly  overbalanced  the 
former. 


JAMES  0.  ROBINSON.  131 


JAMES  0.  EOBIIsrSOK 


JORTHY  reader,  I  will  now  introduce  to  your 
notice  James  C.  Robinson,  now  of  Springfield, 
formerly  of  Clark  county,  Illinois.  He  is  a 
remarkable  instance  of  a  man's  rising  by  force  of  his 
native  talent  to  the  highest  distinction,  with  but  little 
or.rio  education.  When  I  first  knew  him,  he  lived  near 
a  little  village  in  Clark  county,  called  Westfield.  He 
was  a  justice  of  the  peace.  This  village  was  about  ten 
miles  from  Charleston. 

The  first  time  I  remember  him  very  distinctly  was 
when  1  was  called  to  attend  to  a  case  before  him,  Fick- 
lin  being  on  the  other  side.  I  remember  we  had  a 
considerable  struggle  over  the  case,  but  I  beat  Ficklin, 
for  L  had  the  right  side  of  the  case,  and  Robinson  gave 
such  a  clear  view  of  it  in  his  decision  that  it  struck  me 
that  he  deserved  a  higher  place  than  a  mere  justice  of 
the  peace,  and  I  advised  him  to  educate  himself,  and 
to  read  law,  get  a  license  and  practice.  He  did  so,  and 
his  success  has  vindicated  and  sustained  my  judgment, 
lie  went  to  Marshall,  studied  law  and  commenced  the 
practice,  and  success  attended  his  earliest  efforts. 

lie  was  a  Democrat,  and  it  was  not  a  very  long  time 
before  they  took  him  up  and  nominated  him  for  Con- 
gress, and  he  was  elected  and  continued  to  represent 


132  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

liis  district  for  several  successive  sessions,  and  has 
gained  for  himself  much  credit  for  the  ability  he  has 
displayed  as  our  representative.  He  has  since  removed 
to  Springfield,  Illinois,  where  he  has  practiced  his  pro- 
fession with  great  success,  especially  in  the  criminal 
department.  He  was  the  principal  lawyer  in  the  defense 
of  the  man  accused  of  the  murder  of  Murray  McCon- 
nell,  at  Jacksonville.  The  name  of  this  man  was  Rob- 
inson, and  I  have  understood  from  those  who  heard 
the  trial,  that  he  was  largely  indebted  to  the  ingenuity 
and  eloquence  of  James  C.  Robinson  for  his  acquittal. 
James  C.  Robinson  was  run  once  or  twice  by  the 
Democracy  for  Governor  of  this  State,  but  of  course 
was  defeated,  the  Republicans  being  largely  in  the 
majority.  He  may  be  regarded  as  a  very  remark- 
able man,  and  set  down  by  the  side  of  Lincoln,  and 
Andy  Johnson  of  Tennessee,  in  that  he  has  risen  to 
high  distinction  in  spite  of  the  deficiencies  of  his 
education,  by  the  force  of  his  native  intellect.  I  have 
heard  him  make  a  good  many  stump  speeches,  and  I 
declare  here  that  I  have  no  recollection  of  hearing  any 
man  on  the  stump  that  was  his  superior,  unless  it 
might  have  been  Lincoln  or  Douglas.  Besides  pos- 
sessing great  powers  of  natural  oratory,  he  was  gifted 
with  great  conversational  power,  and  I  have  often  been 
delighted  and  edified  with  his  narrations  of  events  that 
were  known  to  him  and  not  to  me. 

What  may  be  Robinson's  future  I  know  not;  but  if 
he  shall  continue  as  he  has  begun,  and  add  to  his  stock 
of  information,  no  man  can  say  where  he  may  land,  or 
limit  his  elevation.  He  is  now  a  young  man — not 
exceeding  forty -five  years  of  age — of  a  fine  constitu- 


JAMES  C.  ROBINSON.  133 

tion  and  health,  and  naturally  an  intellectual  giant. 
Who  shall  undertake  to  limit  such  a  man?  This  is 
but  the  beginning  of  his  history,  and  I  predict  a  very 
small  part  of  it.  Some  abler  pen  than  mine  will  fin- 
ish it  after  I  am  gone,  when  he  has  climbed  to  the 
highest  round  in  the  ladder  of  fame. 

At  this  point  I  must  leave  friend  Robinson,  fearing 
that  I  have  not  done  him  full  justice;  but  he  was  my 
friend  and  I  loved  him,  and  I  still  love  him,  and  I 
desire  in  these  memoirs  to  give  him  a  place.  My 
best  wishes  will  attend  him  through  life,  and  the  bless- 
ings of  an  old  man  that  never  injured  anybody  will 
rest  upon  his  head.  Friend  Robinson,  vale! 


134:  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


3OTLN  J.  BEOWK 


j|WILL  now  introduce  to  the  attention  of  my 
readers  one  of  the  most  distinguished  names 
that  has  figured  in  the  history  of  Illinois— 
a  most  learned  and  accomplished  lawyer,  and  a  ripe 
and  finished  scholar — the  late  John  J.  Brown,  who  died 
in  the  city  of  Chicago,  but  who  lived  the  greater  part  of 
his  life  in  Danville,  Illinois.  During  his  residence 
there,  and  up  to  the  time  of  his  leaving  there,  Dan- 
ville was  but  a  mere  village,  but  has  since  become  a 
city,  of  no  mean  irri]  ortance  by  the  concentration  of 
important  railroad  linis  at  that  point.  Its  growth 
has  been  very  rapid,  and  it  now  bids  fair  to  be  one  of 
the  principal  cities  south  of  Chicago  in  the  State  of 
Illinois.  I  should  say  it  numbered  to-day  fifteen 
thousand  inhabitants.  About  six  railroads  pass  through 
that  place,  and  it  is  not  saying  too  much  that  in  ten 
years  it  will  have  a  population,  of  thirty  thousand 
souls.  Some  of  the  richest  coal  mines  in  Illinois  are 
to  be  found  in  Vermillion  county,  and  across  the  line  in 
Indiana.  Danville  is  the  count}7  seat  of  Yermillion 
county. 

John  J.  Brown  came  from  the  State  of  Virginia,  and 
settled  in  Danville  some  time  in  1839;  it  may  have 
been  as  late  as  1840.  He  soon  attracted  public  atten- 


JOHN  J.  BROWN.  135 

tion  and  commanded  a  fine  practice.  He  was  one  of 
the  most  accomplished  lawyers  of  that  day.  He  was 
a  cousin  to  theLamons,  and  of  Ward  Lamon,  the  part- 
ner of  Abraham  Lincoln,  who  accompanied  Lincoln  to 
Washington,  and  was  either  his  private  secretary,  or 
had  some  position  in  his  household  affairs.  Suffice  it 
to  say,  Lincoln  had  sufficient  confidence  in  him  to  send 
him  to  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  before  the  break- 
ing out  of  hostilities,  on  a  mission  of  peace.  I  have 
said  thus  much  to  give  the  reader  an  idea  of  John  J. 
Brown  and  his  connections.  He  died  many  years 
before  our  Civil  War. 

He  was  a  Whig.  Dr.  William  Fithian  wTas  also  a 
Whig,  and  had  filled  high  offices  in  that  county.  Some- 
where about  the  year  1842  or  1844  he  was  a  candidate 
for  the  State  Senate,  and  John  J.  Brown  was  brought 
out  to  oppose  him,  and  it  becoming  manifest  that 
Fithian  would  be  beaten,  he,  Fithian,  being  as  cun- 
ning as  a  fox,  just  on  the  eve  of  the  election  had  i 
most  scurrilous  assault  printed  and  published  in  hand- 
bills against  himself,  in  which  he  was  charged  with 
the  grossest  crimes  known  to  the  decalogue.  This 
publication  was  kept  secret,  and  on  the  morning  of  the 
election  Fithian  despatched  his  agents  to  all  the  pre- 
cincts in  the  county.  The  hand-bills  were  headed 
" Pro  Bono  Publico"  and  signed  "many  citizens." 
They  were  distributed  just  before  the  polls  were  opened, 
amongst  the  voters,  being  read  by  Fithian's  emissaries 
and  agents,  the  people  became  perfectly  maddened, 
supposing  it  was  the  work  of  John  J.  Brown  and  his 
friends,  and  many  of  his  warmest  friends  turned 
around  and  voted  against  him,  and  he  was  defeated  by 


136  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

a  small  majority  through  the  means  of  this  miserable 
trick  and  fraud.  In  a  very  short  time  after  the  elec- 
tion was  over,  it  became  known,  and  fully  authenticated 
that  Dr.  Fithian  was  the  author  of  the  whole  thing, 
and  that  John  J.  Brown  and  his  friends  had  no  agency 
in  it.  For  a  good  while  Fithian  kept  himself  con- 
cealed, and  did  not  show  himself,  for  such  was  the 
state  of  the  public  mind,  that  he  would  have  been 
torn  in  pieces  if  he  had  made  his  appearance  in  public. 
It  thoroughly  damned  him,  and  he  has  gone  by  the 
name  of  "Pro  Bono  Publico"  ever  since. 

Brown  was  one  of  the  most  classical  and  accom- 
plished speakers  I  ever  heard.  He  made  that  impres- 
sion on  the  people  of  Chicago  after  he  came  here. 

Poor  fellow!  he  had  his  faults,  as  we  all  have,  over 
which  it  is  our  duty  to  draw  the  veil  of  charity ;  but  no 
foul  blot  or  stain  was  ever  fixed  upon  his  character, 
either  as  a  lawyer  or  as  a  man.  Those  who  knew  him 
will  indorse  this  statement  as  true,  if  these  memoirs 
ever  meet  their  eye.  He  was  an  honor  and  ornament 
to  the  bar  of  Illinois,  and  I  wish  to  God  we  had  more 
such  men  to  redeem  the  profession  from  the  reproach 
which  the  chicanery  of  some  of  the  members  of  the  bar 
have  brought  upon  it. 

I  do  not  believe  that  Dr.  Fithian  was  a  bad  man;  for 
the  idea  prevailed  then,  as  it  has  prevailed  through  all 
time,  that  all  things  were  fair  in  politics,  love  and  war. 
Fithian  being  the  choice  of  the  Whig  party  and  nom- 
inated bv  them,  and  John  J.  Brown  bein^  also  a  Whiff, 

«/  O  O 

having  been  brought  out  by  the  Democrats  to  defeat  a 
man  of  his  own  principles,  it  is  but  natural  that  he 
should  have  resorted  to  almost  any  expedient  to  defeat 


JOHN  J-  BROWN.  137 

Mr.  Brown.  "While  I  don't  justify  the  one  to  which  he 
resorted,  I  am  not  disposed  to  judge  him  very  severely. 
Fithian  has  always  been  my  friend,  and  as  a  man  I 
esteem  him  very  highly,  notwithstanding  the  "  Pro 
Bono  Publico." 

This  sketch  ends  here,  so  far  as  John  J.  Brown  is  con- 
cerned, but  I  Avill  continue  my  remarks,  showing  my 
friendship  and  connection  with  Dr.  William  Fithian. 

Many  years  ago,  Dr.  Fithian  got  into  a  paper  war 
with  a  man  of  the  name  of  Cassady.  They  were  both 
members  of  the  Methodist  church.  Cassady  com- 
menced the  war,  and  charged  upon  Fithian  that  he  had 
murdered  his  wife,  and  many  other  crimes  not  neces- 
sary now  to  mention.  Fithian  replied,  denying  the 
charges,  and  employed  O.  L.  Davis,  then  a  young  law- 
yer of  Danville,  now  judge  of  the  circuit  court  of  that 
place,  to  bring  a  suit  against  Cassady  for  written  slan- 
der, and  immediately  wrote  to  Lincoln  at  Springfield 
and  myself  at  Charleston,  retaining  us  in  the  case  for 
him.  We  made  our  appearance  at  the  next  term  of 
the  court,  when  the  case  would  come  on.  Cassady  had 
John  Murphy,  of  Danville,  and  the  celebrated  and  dis- 
tinguished -Ned  Hannegan,  of  Covington,  Ind.,  as  his 
lawyers. 


138  LINDEE'S  KEMINISCENCES. 


EDWARD  A. 


|OUTHY  reader,  you  know,  perhaps,  but  very 
little  of  the  Hon.  Ned  Hannegan,  but  he  had 
been  Senator  in  Congress  from  Indiana,  and 
had  borne  off  the  palm  as  the  most  eloquent  man  that 
had  ever  opened  his  lips  in  that  Senate,  and  he  had 
also  been  our  Minister,  for  a  good  many  years,  to  Prus- 
sia. Judge  David  Davis  was  then  the  Judge  on  that 
circuit,  arid  as  it  is  not  my  intention  to  go  into  the  par- 
ticulars of  this  trial,  I  wish  only  to  say  that  we  got  a 
verdict  of  five  hundred  and  fifty-six  dollars  against 
Cassady.  . 

We  all  roomed  together  at  the  hotel — Judge  Davis, 
Hannegan,  Lincoln  and  myself— and  Hannegan  gave 
us  a  sketch  of  his  court  visits  and  the  court  dinners 
that  were  given  him,  and  the  blunders  that  he  made. 
He  said  that  the  first  dinner-  that  he  went  to  he 
didn't  know  how  he  should  dress,  "but,"  said  he,  "  I  went 
to  our  consul  and  his  wife,  who  had  been  in  that 
country  along  time,  and  they  rigged  me  out  in  appro- 
priate costume;  so  I  started,  but  got  there  a  little  too 
late.  This  dinner  was  given  by  the  Prime  Minister, 
Count  somebody,  whose  name  I  cannot  now  recall,  and 
they  were  all  sitting  at  the  table.  The  Master  of  Cere- 
monies ushered  me  in  and  placed  me  near  the  head  of 


EDWAKD  A.  HANNEGAN.  139 

the  table;  the  Minister  and  all  his  subordinates,  or 
staff,  whichever  you  may  wish  to  call  them,  sat  there 
in  their  military  uniforms,  wrapped  in  awful  silence. 
A  servant  brought  me  a  bill  of  fare,  and  I  indicated  to 
him  that  I  would  take  a  plate  of  soap,  which  was 
brought  me.  During  all  this  time  not  one  word  had 
been  spoken,  and  great  drops  of  sweat  rolled  down  my 
face.  The  other  side  of  the  table  from  which  I  sat  was 
garnished  with  the  most  beautiful  ladies  I  ever  saw, 
and  while  I  was  doing  justice  to  my  plate  of  soup, 
a  sweet  voice  from  the  «ther  side  of  the  table,  in  the 
purest  English,  said:  '  Mr.  Hannegan,  how  have  you 
enjoyed  yourself  since  you  have  been  Minister  to  Prus- 
sia?' I  laid  down  my  spoon  and  told  her  that  hearing 
my  owrn  language  spoken  with  such  purity  and  sweet- 
ness there,  I  felt  as  though  it  was  a  voice  from  one -of 
the  angels  from  heaven.  (She  was  the  wife  of  the 
Count,  the  Prime  Minister.)  '  Take  care,  Mr.  Hanne- 
gaii,'  said  she,  '  or  you  will  .make  the  Count  jealous.' 
'O!'  said  I,  'I  have  no  fears  of  that,  for  he  don't 
understand  a  word  of  English.'  '  Aye,'  said  she,  '  he 
don't  converse  in  the  language,  but  he  understands 
every  word  of  -that  language  which  is  spoken  in  his 
presence.'  After  enjoying  a  hearty  laugh,  in  which 
the  Count  himself  joined,  and  after  the  interchange  of 
many  compliments  between  the  countess  and  myself, 
I  arose,  made  my  bow  and  took  my  leave." 

After  Hannegan  retired  from  the  room,  Judge 
Davis,  Lincoln  and  myself,  all  agreed  that  we  never 
heard  a  man  of  such  interesting  conversational  powers 
in  our  lives. 

I  should  like  sometime  hereafter  in  the  memoirs, 


140 


LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


to  give  to  Senator  Hannegan  a  wider  space  and  a  more 
extended  notice.  For  the  present  I  must  pass  on  to 
the  men  who  lived,  and  to  the  events  which  occurred, 
in  the  State  of  Illinois. 


SIDNEY  BJREESE. 


SIDNEY  BEEESE. 


JHAYE  not  as  yet  regularly  taken  up  Judge 
Breese,  and  so  far  as  he  lias  been  noticed  in 
these  pages,  it  has  only  been  incidentally,  and 
I  am  somewhat  loath  to  sketch  him  at  all,  inasmuch 
as  it  has  been  so  extensively  done  by  other  and  abler 
pens  than  mine;  but  lest  his  friends  should  think  I 
purposely  omitted  him,  if  I  should  not  notice  him  as  1 
have  other  distinguished  men,  through  some  unwor- 
thy or  improper  motive,  I  will  in  this  place  give  my 
personal  recollections  of  Judge  Breese,  and  what  I 
have  learned  of  him  from  reliable  sources.  He  was  a 
citizen  of  this  State  when  I  came  here,  and  lived,  I 
believe,  in  Carlyle,  Clinton  county,  111.  He  first  set- 
tled in  Kaskaskia,  which  was  the  early  home  of  some 
of  our  most  distinguished  men,  to  wit:  Judge  Pope, 
Elias  Kent  Kane,  David  J.  Baker,  and  others.  Breese 
was  quite  a  young  man  when  he  came  there,  and  it 
was  shortly  before  or  after  we  ceased  to  be  a  territory. 
Breese  was  a  man  who  descended  from  a  very  wealthy 
and  aristocratic  family,  which  lived,  I  believe,  in  the 
State  of  New  York.  He  received  a  collegiate  and  lib- 
eral education,  and  studied  his  profession  of  the  law, 
and  then  came  West  to  seek  his  fortune,  and  by  dint 
of  his  own  talent  and  exertions  to  work  his  way  up  to 


142  LEADER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

fame  and  distinction,  which  in  time  he  effectually  did. 
He  was  elected  to  the  circuit  court  bench,  I  think  at 
the  session  of  1834  and  '35,  which  took  place  before  I 
came  to  the  State.  I  have  already  said  that  he  presi- 
ded on  the  circuit  of  which  Yandalia,  the  seat  of  gov- 
ernment, was  a  part.  He  was  considered,  and  I  think 
justly,  the  most  learned  and  profound  jurist  in  the 
State.  He  continued  on  the  circuit  court  bench  until 
he  was  elected  to  the  Senate  in  Congress  in  184-2,  over 
Stephen  A.  Douglas,  who  was  then  a  candidate  for  the 
Senate  for  the  first  time.  In  the  caucus  that  nomina- 
nated  Breese,  he  only  beat  Douglas,  I  think,  two 
votes. 

It  was  at  this  session  of  the  legislature  of  1842  that 
that  they  changed  our  judicial  system  to  the  extent  of 
getting  rid  of  the  circuit  court  judges,  and  enacting 
by  law  that  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  should 
perform  the  duties  which  had  theretofore  been  assigned 
to  the  circuit  judges.  We  had  then  only  four  Supreme 
Judges,  and  this  legislature  provided  by  law  for  the 
increase  of  their  number  to  nine,  which  made  five  ad- 
ditional judges.  The  object  was  to  have  a  Supreme 
Judge  for  each  circuit,  the  State  being  then  divided 
into  nine  circuits.  I  remember  distinctly  that  Douglas 
was  elected  one  of  those  five  judges,  and  was  assigned 
to  the  circuit  in  the  military  district,  of  which  Schuy- 
ler  county  composed  a  part. 

Judge  Douglas  was  quite  popular  among  the  younger 
members  of  the  bar,  but  for  want  of  sufficient  dignity 
rather  horrified  some  of  the  older  ones;  for  he  would 
occasionally  at  dinner  vacation  sit  down  on  a  brother 
lawyer's  lap  and  rattle  away  about  politics  and  past 


SIDNEY  BEEESE.  143 

times,  for  it  was  hard  for  him  to  forget  his  election- 
eering traits.  He  was  however  soon  taken  off  the 
bench  and  elected  to  the  House  of  Representatives  in 
Congress. 

The  reader  must  pardon  this  digression  and  permit 
me  to  return  to  Judge  Breese,  who  served  out  his  six 
years  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  was  a 
candidate  for  re-election,  and  would  have  been  elected 
(for  he  had  made  one  of  the  most  dignified  and  able 
Senators  of  any  member  of  that  august  body)  had  it 
not  been  for  two  circumstances:  the  first  was,  he  got 
into  a  newspaper  controversy  with  Senator  Douglas, 
who  by  that  time  had  passed  up  from  the  House  of 
Representatives  in  Congress  to  the  Senate.  In  that 
controversy  Douglas  got  greatly  the  advantage.of  him. 
The  other  circumstance  was  that  General  Shields  was 
the  opposing  candidate  to  Breese.  He  had  come  home 
from  the  Mexican  war  (where  he  had  been  wounded, 
as  I  have  before  related)  all  covered  with  glory,  and 
the  Democratic  party  gave  him  the  nomination  and 
elected  him  to  the  Senate. 

Breese  was  never  returned  to  that  body.  He  con- 
tinued, however,  but  a  short  time  in  retirement,  when 
he  was  elected  by  the  people  of  his  county  a  member 
of  the  popular  branch  of  our  State  Legislature.  I 
was  a  member  of  the  same  .body  at  that  session.  It 
was  my  last  year  in  the  Illinois  Legislature.  We 
elected  him  Speaker  of  our  House,  and  he  filled  that 
position  with  great  dignity  and  ability. 

The  convention  to  form  a  new  constitution  having 
made  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  elective  by  the 
people,  and  re-established  the  old  circuit  court  system, 


144  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

save  that  those  judges  were  also  elected  by  the  people, 
and  cut  down  the  Supreme  Judges  to  three — Judge 
Breese,  in  1855  was  again  elected  Circuit  Judge,  and 
two  years  later,  on  the  resignation  of  Judge  Scates,  he 
was  again,  for  the  second  time,  elevated  to  the  Supreme 
Bench,  which  position  he  has  held  ever  since.  He  has 
written  and  delivered  more  of  the  opinions  of  that  court 
than  any  other  Supreme  Judge  that  ever  sat  upon  that 
bench.  He  is  now  more  than  eighty  years  of  age,  and 
with  the  exception  of  his  being  gray-headed,  looks  to  me 
almost  as  vigorous,  physically  and  intellectually,  as  he 
did  twenty -five  years  ago.  Certainly  his  recently  deliv- 
ered opinions  show  no  decline  in  his  mental  powers.  I 
calculate  that  he  will  die  with  his  harness  on — a  mem- 
ber of  -that  court.  It  is  the  very  station  for  which  he 
seems  to  have  been  cut  out;  he  was  hot  adapted,  either 
by  nature  or  education,  to  be  a  politician — to  go  into 
the  hustings  and  mingle  with  the  crowd — but  he  was 
formed  for  a  great  judge,  which  he  is  to-day. 

I  will  go  back  and  relate  a  circumstance  which 
occurred  in  his  early  life,  and  which  hung  like  a  dark 
pall  over  his  political  aspirations.  When  General  Jack- 
son was  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  some  of  his 
enemies  got  up  a  picture,  which  they  supposed  would 
do  him  great  injury.  It  represented  six  coffins  and 
six  soldiers,  each  sitting  on  one  of  them,  who  had  been 
tried  by  a  court  martial  for  desertion  and  condemned 
to  be  shot,  while  he  lay  at  New  Orleans  with  his  lit- 
tle army,  whom  General  Jackson  refused  to  pardon, 
although  entreated  to  do  so  by  their  mothers  with  tears 
and  supplications.  Gen.  Jackson  could  not  do  it  with- 
out demoralizing  his  whole  army,  and  the  British  army, 


SIDNEY   BKEESE.  145 

which  lay  in  great  force  on  the  other  side  of  his  breast- 
works, might  have  entered  as  triumphant  victors,  and 
sacked  and  pillaged  the  city,  for  their  watchword  was, 
"  Booty  and  beauty."  Gen  Jackson  therefore  permit- 
ted the  sentence  of  the  court  to  be  executed. 

Now  Breese  was  charged,  and  I  believe  it  was  proven 
upon  him,  with  having  circulated  these  odious  coffin 
hand-bills.  Nothing  ever  made  the  friends  of  Jackson 
so  mad  as  these  vile  and  miserable  pictures,  and  they 
never  forgave  any  man  known  to  have  circulated  them 
amongst  the  people.  Breese  stoutly  denied  having 
had  any  participation  in  their  circulation,  but  he  had 
to  profess  Democracy  for  many  years  and  do  good  ser- 
vice in  the  cause  before  he  could  overcome  the  effects 
of  this  charge.  It  was  finally  frittered  away,  and  Breese' 
was  admitted  into  close  fellowship  with  the  Democratic 
party. 

Breese  married  a  Miss  Morrison,  who  is,  if  living, 
one  of  the  most  amiable  and  estimable  ladies  of  the 
State  of  Illinois.  She  belonged  to  a  very  wealthy  and 
arris  tocratic  family,  and  is,  I  believe,  a  cousin  of  Col. 
>Don  Morrison. 

Though  Breese  has  been  highly  honored,  yet  I  am 
frank  to  confess  that  he  has  never  had  awarded  to  him 
the  full  measure  of  his  deserts;  for  he  has  certainly 
done  more  to  give  character  to  our  judicial  history  than 
any  one,  two  or  even  three  men  in  the  State  of  Illinois. 
On  the  examination  of  our  fifty  or  sixty  reports,  it  will 
be  found  that  he  has  delivered  opinions  elaborating 
and  elucidating  every  principle  of  law,  both  of  the 
common  law  and  equity,  and  many  more  on  the  science 
and  correct  mode  of  pleading.  Any  intelligent  student 
10 


146  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

of  law  who  will  read  and  closely  study  all  of  Judge 
Breese's  opinions  and  digest  them  thoroughly,  will  be 
competent  to  go  into  the  highest  courts  of  the  Union, 
and  would  be  at  home  even  on  the  Queen's  Bench  of 
England. 

Breese  possessed  no  mean  conversational  powers, 
and  at  times  in  his  social  intercourse  was  exceedingly 
pleasant.  His  face  and  head  always  struck  me  as 
strongly  resembling  the  portraits  I  have  seen  of  the 
First  Napoleon.  Though  at  times  eminently  social, 
and  could  win  with  one  of  his  smiles  the  heart  of  almost 
any  young  lawyer,  yet  at  other  times  he  was  reticent 
and  supercilious,  and  could  make  his  associates  feel 
their  inferiority.  To  this  last  statement  I  presume 
there  are  many  of  his  old  acquaintances  now  living 
who  will  bear  testimony. 

I  will  relate  here  a  very  amusing  incident  which 
occurred  in  his  court  at  Ed  ward  svi  lie.  A  very  respec- 
table farmer  had  been  indicted  for  negligently  setting 
fire  to  the  prairie.  His  object  was  to  burn  the  grass 
inside  of  his  fence  and  not  let  it  get  beyond  his 
enclosure.  He  started  the  fire  there,  but  for  want  of 
sufficient  force  it  got  beyond  it,  and  burned  some  of 
his  neighbors'  haystacks.  The  neighbors,  however, 
got  together  and  extinguished  it  before  it  did  any  very 
great  harm. 

The  jury  brought  in  a  verdict  of  guilty,  the  assess- 
ing the  penalty  belonging  to  the  court.  The  extent 
of  the  penalty  which  the  court  could  inflict  by  the 
statute  was  not  less  than  five  nor  more  than  one  hun- 
dred dollars.  The  man  had  been  defended  by  my 
friend  Joe  Gillespie.  The  proof  showed  that  the 


SIDNEY  BEEESE.  147 

accused  was  a  man  of  excellent  character,  a  good 
neighbor,  and  that  the  act  for  which  he  had  been  con- 
victed was  more  accidental  than  otherwise. 

Breese,  in  passing  sentence,  said  this  was  a  grave 
offense,  and  under  other  circumstances  he  would  be 
induced  to  inflict  a  fine  to  the  utmost  limit  allowed  by 
the  statute,  but  the  object  of  the  law  was-  not  ven- 
geance but  rather  for  reformation  and  prevention;  he 
would  not  inflict  exemplary  punishment.  This  man 
having  shown  a  good  character,  and  this  probably 
being  the  first  offense,  "  I  shall  therefore  fine  him 
only  in  the  small  sum  of  seventy-five  dollars." 

Joe  Gillespie,  who  had  been  sitting  very  quietly, 
sprang  out  of  his  seat  as  if  he  had  been  shot,  and 
exclaimed,  "Jesus  Christ!  God  Almighty!  the  mod- 
erate sum  of  only  seventy-five  dollars,!  "  He  picked  up 
his  hat  and  left  the  court  room. 

Reader,  you  should  have  been  there  to  have  heard 
the  peals  of  laughter  that  reverberated  through  the  old 
court  house.  I  expected  Breese  would  fine  Joe,  but 
he  didn't.  He  seemed  to  enjoy  the  thing  as  well  as 
anybody  else,  and  chuckled,  and  his  old  fat  sides  shook 
from  half-suppressed  merriment. 

I  believe  I  have  said  about  as  much  of  Judge  Breese 
as  it  is  necessary  to  insert  in  this  place. 


148  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JOffiT  REYNOLDS. 


I  came  to  the  State  of  Illinois,  in  1835, 
among  the  most  prominent  men  was  Gov. 
John  Reynolds.  He  had  been  Governor  of 
Illinois  in  the  time  of  the  Black  Hawk  "War,  and  had 
also  been  a  member  of  Congress  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  for  the  district,  including  Belleville, 
the  home  of  Gov.  Reynolds.  He  himself  has  written 
a  history  of  Illinois,  but  I  have  never  had  the 
pleasure  of  its  perusal,  and  cannot  speak  therefore 
of  its  merits  or  demerits.  He  lived  to  a  very  advanced 
age,  and  wrote  his  book  during  his  latter  days.  He 
must  have  been  eighty  years  of  age  when  he  wrote  it. 
I  knew  him  well.  Our  acquaintance  commenced 
in  1836  and  '37,  at  Yandalia.  When  I  lived  in  Alton, 
in  the  latter  part  of  1837,  he  was  a  candidate  for  Con- 
gress and  was  elected.  I  remember  that  I  supported 
him.  In  speaking  of  the  offices  he  had  filled  before  I 
came  to  the  State,  I  neglected  to  mention  that  he  had 
been  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  when 
the  judges  of  that  court  performed  circuit  court 
duties. 

Reynolds  was  somewhat  of  an  odd  man  and  feigned 
to  be  illiterate,  when  in  truth  he  was  a  ripe  scholar 
(which  I  have  from  the  best  authority),  understanding 


JOHN  REYNOLDS.  149 

the  Greek  and  Latin  perfectly,  and  being  familiar  with 
the  ancient  classics.  He  had  drank  deeply  of  the 
waters  of  the  Pierian  spring,  and  had  not  allowed  him- 
self to  be  intoxicated  by  shallow  draughts.  But  these 
accomplishments  of  his  he  seemed  more  disposed  to 
conceal  than  to  blazen  forth  to  the  world. 

There  is  a  very  amusing  anecdote  told  of  him  (which 
I  believe  he  has  given  in  his  history  of  Illinois),  which 
occurred  while  he  was  holding  one  of  the  terms  of  the 
circuit  court  at  Edwardsville.  At  that  term  a  man 
by  the  name  of  Green  was  tried  before  him  on  the 
charge  of  having  committed  murder,  and  was  con- 
victed. Reynolds,  who  was  always  seeking  popularity 
whether  on  or  off  the  bench  and  disliked  to  have  the 
ill  will  of  any  one,  even  of  a  murderer,  after  the  verdict 
of  guilty  had  been  read  by  the  clerk  in  open  court, 
turned  to  Green,  his  face  all  beaming  with  sympathy, 
and  said:  "  Mr.  Green,  I  am  truly  sorry  for  you;  the 
jury  have  found  you  guilty  of  murder,  and  I  suppose 
you  know  that  you  have  got  to  be  hung."  "Yes, 
your  Honor,"  said  Green. 

Reynolds  then  went  on  to  say:  "  Mr.  Green,  I  want 
you  to  understand  that  this  is  none  of  my  work,  but 
of  a  jury  of  your  own  selection.  I  would  take  it  as  a 
favor  of  you  if  you  would  communicate  this  fact  to 
your  friends  and  relatives.  The  law  makes  it  my  duty 
to  pass  sentence  upon  you  and  carry  out  the  verdict 
of  the  jury.  It  is  a  mere  matter  of  form,  Mr.  Green, 
so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  and  your  death  can  in  no 
way  be  imputed  to  me." 

Reynolds  had  a  peculiar  way  when  he  wanted  to 
make  his  remarks  impressive,  of  laying  the  open  palm 


150  LIXDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

of  his  hand  on  his  forehead  and  drawing  it  down  slowly 
over  his  face.  Making  this  manipulation,  he  said  to 
the  convict:  "  Mr.  Green,  when  would  you  like  to  be 
hung?" 

"  Your  Honor,"  said  Green,  "  if  I  had  any  choice 
in  the  matter,  I  should  not  like  to  be  hung  at  all;  but 
as  it  seems  I  have  not,  I  have  no  preference  of  one 
time  over  another." 

Reynolds,  turning  to  old  Jo  Conway,  the  clerk, 
said:  "  Mr.  Conway,  look  at  the  almanac  and  see  if 
the  fourth  Friday  in  December  comes  on  Sunday." 
Conway  being  a  man  of  considerable  humor,  with  a 
grave  and  solemn  look  turned  to  the  almanac,  and 
running  down  to  this  period  in  December,  looked  up 
at  the  Judge  on  his  bench  and  said:  "I  find,  your 
Honor,  to  my  utter  astonishment,  that  that  day  comes 
upon  Friday!"  "  So  it  does,  so  it  does,"  said  Reynolds. 

Reynolds  delivered  a  very  short  sentence.  Turning 
to  Green  he  said:  "Mr.  Green,  the  sentence  of  the 
court  is.  that  on  the  fourth  Friday  in  December, 
between  the  hours  of  ten  o'clock  in  the  forenoon  and 
four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  sheriff  of  Madison 
county  will  take  you  from  the  jail  to  the  place  of  exe- 
cution, and  there,  Mr.  Green,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  he 
will  hang  you  till  you  are  dead,  dead,  dead,  and  may 
the  Lord  have  mercy  upon  your  soul.  And  don't 
forget,  Mr.  Green,  that  this  is  not  my  work,  but  that 
of  the  jury  which  tried  you." 

By  order  of  the  court  Green  was  remanded  to  jail 
and  finally  executed. 

I  am  not  anxions  to  say  anything  more.of  Governor 
Reynolds,  because  his  history  will  be  found  written  by 


JOHN  REYNOLDS. 


151 


many  abler  pens  than  mine;  and  he  is  one  of  those 
well  and  widely  known  characters  that  history  is  sure 
to  carry  doAvn  to  posterity. 


152  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JOHN  TOEK  SAWYER 


]HERE  is  a  man  to  whose  name  I  have  not 
heretofore  even  alluded.  It  is  John  York 
Sawyer  who  was  living  at  the  time  I  came 
to  Illinois,  I  believe,  and  editing  a  Democratic  paper 
at  Yandalia.  Of  the  fact  of  his  being  alive  at  that 
time  I  am  not  positively  sure;  but  if  he  was  not  alive, 
his  demise  had  occurred  but  a  short  time  before  my 
advent.  For  a  fat  man  Sawyer  was  one  of  the 
most  ill-tempered  and  bitter  men  in  Illinois,  or  per- 
haps anywhere.  I  have  been  told  (for  I  never  saw 
him),  that  he  weighed  over  four  hundred  pounds 
avoirdupois.  He  had  been  Judge  of  the  circuit 
court  a  considerable  time  before  I  came  to  the  State, 
and  Greene  county  was  in  the  circuit  where  he 
presided.  At  that  time  the  law  provided  for  whip- 
ping men  for  pe'tit  larceny.  Sawyer  was  a  terror  to 
all  such  offenders,  and  was  fond  of  snapping  up  the 
lawyers  who  defended  them.  A  fellow  was  tried  be- 
fore him  at  one  of  his  terms  in  Green  county,  for  petit 
larceny,  and  convicted.  He  was  defended  by  Cavarly, 
a  lawyer  still  living  at  Ottawa,  Illinois,  and  now  a 
very  old  man.  ^Cavarly  moved  an  arrest  of  judgment 
and  for  a  new  trial,  and  begged  his  Honor  to  allow 
him  time  to  go  over  to  his  office  and  get  some  authori- 


JOHN  YOKK  SAWYEE.  153 

ties  which  he  wished  to  read  in  support  of  his  motion. 
"  Oh,  certainly,  certainly,"  said  Sawyer  to  him,  as- 
suming one  of  the  blandest  looks  possible,  "  the  court 
will  wait  with  the  greatest  pleasure  on  you,  Mr.  Cav- 
arly."  Cavarly  made  one  of  his  profoundest  bows  and 
retired.  Scarcely  had  he  left  the.  court  house  when 
Sawyer  said  to  the  sheriff:  "  Mr.  Sheriff,  take  the  pris- 
oner out  to  yon  white  oak  tree  "  (pointing  to  one 
through  a  window  which  was  back  of  him,  and  about 
fifty  yards  off),  "strip  him  to  the  skin  and  give  him 
thirty-nine  lashes  on  his  bare  back,  well  laid  on." 

The  sheriff  executed  the  sentence  of  the  court  with 
great  speed. 

Sawyer  turned  around  and  looked  out  of  the  win- 
dow while  it  was  being  executed,  and  in  a  loud  voice, 
while  the  blood  was  streaming  down  the  culprit's  back, 
counted  the  number  of  strokes  on'  his  fingers — one, 
two,  three,  etc.,  until  he  had  counted  out  the  full  num- 
ber of  thirty-nine. 

The  sheriff  washed  the  back  of  the  prisoner,  re- 
clothed  him,  and  brought  him  into  court.  He  was 
scarcely  seated  when  Cavarly  made  his  appearance, 
with  his  arm  full  of  law  books,  and  with  great  confi- 
dence and  pomposity  said  to  the  court:  "  May  it  please 
your  Honor,  I  am  now  prepared  to  show  beyond  a 
doubt  that  my  client  has  been  wrongfully  convicted, 
and  is  entitled  to  a  new  trial." 

"  Yery  well,  Mr.  Cavarly,  go  on ;  the  court  will  hear 
you  with  great  pleasure." 

And  he,  Sawyer,  had  the  malice  to  let  Cavarly  pro- 
ceed, and  read  authorities  for  some  time;  but  at  last 
interposed,  and  said:  "Mr.  Cavarly,  you  have  satisfied 


154:  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

the  court,  and  if  you  desire  it  I  shall  grant  you  a  new 
trial."  But  at  this  point  his  client  whispered  in  his 
ear,  "Don't  take  it,  Mr.  Cavarly,  or  they  will  whip 
me  again."  The  court  went  on  to  finish  his  remarks: 
"  But  I  will  inform  you  that  your  client  has  been 
whipped,  and  received  thirty-nine  lashes  on  his  bare 
back,  well  laid  on,  for  I  saw  and  counted  them." 

Cavarly  exclaimed,  with  great  indignation,  "  This 
is  an  outrage,  and  I  protest  against  such  conduct  upon 
the  part  of  a  court."  "  Oh,  Mr.  Cavarly,"  said  Saw- 
yer, "you  have  a  right  to  protest.  Clerk,  enter  Mr. 
Cavarly's  protest  on  the  record ;"  and  turning  to  Mr. 
Cavarly,  said:  "  Now,  Mr.  Cavarly,  bring  on  your  corn 
merchant  (meaning  a  client  of  Cavarly's  who  was 
charged  with  stealing  corn),  and  we  will  dispose  of 
him  as  we  have  with  your  hog  merchant"  (meaning 
the  man  who  had  been  whipped). 

I  never  saw  Sawyer.  He  died  before  I  came  to  the 
State,  I  believe. 


STEPHEN  T.  LOGAN.  155 


STEPHEN  T.  LOGAK 


fSHALL  introduce  to  the  attention  of  my 
readers  the  name  of  Stephen  T.  Logan,  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  lawyers  of  the  State 
of  Illinois.  He  was  born  in  the  State  of  Kentucky; 
was  bred  to  the  law,  and  became  eminent  in  his  native 
State  before  he  left  it.  He  was  living  at  Springfield, 
Ills.,  when  I  came  to  the  State.  I  knew  him  well, 
both  while  he  lived  in  Kentucky  and  since;  we  served 
together  in  the  State  legislature  -between  1846  and 
1850,  in  one  of  its  sessions.  I  think  he  is  the  finest 
lawver  I  ever  sawT.  Logan  is  a  very  small  man,  and 
he  is  now  over  eighty  years  of  age,  and  has,  I  under- 
stand, given  up  the  practice  of  law.  He  and  Lincoln 
were  at  one  time  partners,  and  I  heard  Lincoln  say  that 
it  was  his  highest  ambition  to  become  as  good  a  law- 
yer as  Logan.  I  also  heard  Col.  Baker  use  the  same 
expression.  Logan  is  extremely  wealthy,  owning  a 
large  number  of  fine  business  houses  in  Springfield, 
and  some  dozen  or  so  fine  farms  in  Sangamon  county, 
and  has  a  large  amount  of  money  out  at  interest, 
secured  by  mortgages  on  real  estate.  When  Logan 
and  I  were  members  of  the  legislature  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  we  were  brought*  in  frequent  col- 
lision with  each  other.  He  was  a  man  possessing 


156  LIKDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

strong  powers  of  debate,  and  would  give  any  man  with 
whom  he  came  in  contact  as  much  as  lie  could  do. 
Logan  and  I  had  a  running  debate  of  four  or  five  days 
on  the  subject  of  districting  the  State  from  which 
to  elect  delegates  to  the  Convention  to  be  held  in  1848, 
to  form  a  new  Constitution.  Logan  favored  the  meas- 
ure; I  opposed  it,  believing  that  the  Constitution  had 
provided  the  districts  from  which  the  delegates  should 
come  when  a  new  Constitution  was  to  be  formed;  and 
that  to  make  new  and  other  districts  was  unconstitu- 
tional, and  I  still  believe  that  I  was  right;  but  the 
measure  carried,  being  supported  by  the  northern 
members  in  a  body. 

I  will  relate  a  little  anecdote  here  which  occurred  dur- 
ing the  time  of  this  debate.  I  had  some  local  measure 
that  I  wanted  to  get  through  the  legislature  as  speed- 
ily as  possible;  so  one  morning  on  the  meeting  of  the 
House,  I  moved  the  suspension  of  the  rules  to  enable 
me  to  do  so.  Hall  Simms,  a  member  from  Edgar  county, 
a  very  crabbed  and  sour  man,  rose  in  his  place  and 
opposed  it,  saying  that  I  had  had  more  favors  from  that 
House  and  had  consumed  more  time  in  debate  than  any 
other  member  of  the  House,  and  he  for  one  should 
oppose  the  suspension  of  the  rules.  I  replied  that  I 
had  received  a  good  many  favors  from  the  House — per- 
haps more  than  I  was  entitled  to — and  that  I  was  aware 
that  my  popularity  in  the  House  was  somewhat  on  the 
wane,  but  I  took  it  as  exceedingly  unkind  in  the  mem- 
ber from  Edgar  county  to  attack  me  at  such  a  time,  and 
that  I  would  relate  a  fable  from  ^Esop,  which  would 
explain  my  situation:  "A  lion  got  after  a  bull,  and, 
being  hard  pressed,  the  bull  made  for  a  cave  that  he 


STEPHEN  T.  LOGAN.  157 

knew  of,  and  when  he  got  there  he  found  another  enemy 
in  the  mouth  of  that  cave  in  the  form  of  a  formidable 
he-goat,  with  a  long  beard  and  terrible  head  of  horns, 
shaking  them  as  much  as  to  say,  '  You  shall  not  enter 
here.'  But  the  bull,  not  being  greatly  dismayed, 
pressed  on  and  slipped  in  at  one  side  of  the  goat,  and 
as  he  passed  him,  whispered  in  his  ear:  'If  I  were  not 
so  hard  pressed  by  the  lion,  I  would  show  you  the 
difference  between  a  bull  and  a  goat.'  Now,  Mr. 
Speaker,"  said  I,  "  Mr.  Logan  is  the  lion  and  I  am  the 
bull,  and  he  has  been  chasing  me  for  the  last  four  or 
five  days,  and  who  is  the  goat  I  leave  the  gentleman 
from  Edgar  to  guess."  There  was  a  tremendous  laugh 
all  over  the  House  at  poor  Simms'  expense,  and  my 
motion  fpr  a  suspension  of  the  rules  was  carried  almost 
unanimously. 

Logan  did  not  come  back  to  the*  legislature  at  its 
next  session;  but  I  was  there  and  frequently  saw  him 
in  the  lobby  and  in  the  Supreme  court  room,  where 
he  had  a  large  and  lucrative  practice. 

Judge  Logan's  feelings  towards  me  I  know  to  have 
been  of  a  very  warm  and  kindly  character.  I  know  too, 
if  it  will  not  be  immodest  to  mention  it,  that  he  enter- 
tained a  very  high  opinion  of  me  as  a  public  speaker. 
I  remember  on  one  occasion  when  it  was  known  that 
I  was  going  to  speak  on  some  interesting  question 
before  the  legislature,  Logan,  and  his  little  daughter, 
about  thirteen  rears  of  age,  came  into  the  gallery,  and 
he  beckoned  me  to  them.  I  went,  and  after  introduc- 
ing his  little  girl  to  me,  he  said,  "My  little  daughter 
having  heard  a  great  deal  of  you  from  myself  and  oth- 
ers, has  a  strong  desire  to  hear  you  speak,  and  know- 


158  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

ing  that  yon  are  to  speak  to-day,  I  liaye  brought 
her  here  to  hear  yon,  arid  hope  we  will  not  be 
disappointed."  I  •  relate  this  circumstance  only  to 
show  the  kindly  feeling  existing  between  Logan 
and  myself. 

Logan  was  eccentric  in  a  good  many  things,  espe- 
cially iu  his  dress,  being  generally  very  loosely  and 
iinfashionably  clad.  A  very  amusing  occurrence  took 
place  between  Logan  and  Mr.  Lincoln.  They  were 
engaged  in  a  case  in  th,e  circuit  court  of  Sangamon, 
on  opposite  sides.  Logan  undertook  to  play  off  his 
wit  upon  Lincoln,  and  said  to  the  jury,  "  In  the  com- 
mon affairs  of  ordinary  life  Lincoln  has  no  knowl- 
edge." Lincoln  in  reply  said,  "  Gentlemen  of  the" 
jury,  I  make  no  large  pretensions  of  knowledge  of 
any  kind,  but  there  is  one  thing  that  I  do  know  which 
Judge  Logan  does  not — I  know  which  is  the  front  and 
which  is  the  back  part  of  my  shirt;  now  if  you  will 
examine  Judge  Logan,  you  will  find  that  he  has  put 
on  his  shirt  with  the  wrong  side  in  front,"  and  step- 
ping up  to  Logan,  deliberately  opened  his  bosom  and 
revealed  the  fact  that  what  he  had  said  was  true.  It 
was  one  of  those  shirts  which  is  -open  behind  and  not 
in  front,  and  Logan  had  reversed  the  order  of  things, 
and  put  on  his  shirt  in  such  a  way  that  that  part 
which  should  have  covered  his  bosom  was  on  his  back, 
with  the  slit  before.  Lincoln  said:  "Now,  gentlemen 
of  the  jury,  behold  this  man  of  wonderful  knowledge 
in  the  common-place  affairs  of  ordinary  life,  who  t.rits 
me  with  want  of  such  knowledge,  and  does  not  know 
the  back  from  the  bosom  of  his  shirt." 

The  laugh  was   turned  terribly  upon  Logan;    but 


STEPHEN  T.  LOGAN. 


159 


Lincoln  was  a  great  friend  to  the  last  day  of  his  life, 
to-  Stephen  T.  Logan. 

This  notice  of  Stephen  T.  Logan  is  more  meagre 
than  I  could  wish  it,  for  certainly  in  intellect  he  was 
equal  to  any  whom  I  have  noticed.  I  therefore  leave 
him  with  the  reader,  and  pass  on  to  another  man  of 
early  times. 


160  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


ZADOOK  CASEY. 


U3OCK  CASEY  was  not  a  lawyer,  but  a 
Methodfst  preacher.  He  was  a  native  of  the 
State  of  Tennessee,  and  with  his  little  family, 
which-consisted  of  his  wife  and  one  little  child,  removed 
to  this  State  sometime  abont  1822  or  '23.  For  a  good 
while  he  followed  his  sacred  vocation.  It  is  needless  . 
to  say  that  he  was  eminent  therein,  for  there  are  quite 
a  number  now  living  who  knew  him  who  can  bear 
testimony  to  the  fact.  He  was  a  man  of  fine  physical 
form,  about  six  feet  high,  as  straight  as  an  arrow,  and 
of  as  imposing  appearance  and  address  as  I  ever  saw. 
He  was  soon  forced  by  favorable  public  opinion  to  go 
into  political  life;  he  filled  many  public  stations;  was 
at  one  time  Lieutenant-Governor,  before  I  came  to  the 
State,  and  by  virtue  of  that  office  presided  as  speaker 
over  the  deliberations  of  the  Senate;  and  I  haye  been 
told  by  those  who  were  eye-witnesses,  that  he  was  one 
of  the  most  accomplished  presiding  officers  over  a 
deliberative  body  that  they  ever  saw — prompt,  and 
quick  in  his  decisions  and  generally  right. 

After  this  time  he  was  elected  to  Congress  from 
his  district  in  the  southern  part  of  the  State,  which 
included  Jefferson  county,  where  he  first  settled,  and 
continued  to  represent  it  in  Congress  without  any 


ZADOCK  CASEY.  161 

break  or  intermission  for  ten  or  twelve  years.  He  was 
a  member  of  Congress  when  I  came  to  the  State  in 
1835,  and  continued  so  for  some  considerable  time. 
He  was  often  called  upon  by  the  speaker  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  in  Congress  to  take  the  chair  and 
preside  over  its  deliberations,  from  the  fact  that  it  was 
well  known  that  he  knew  more  parliamentary  law  and 
practice  than  any  member  of  that  body.  He  was 
prompt,  quick,  correct  and  dignified  in  the  perform- 
ance of  the  functions  of  that  station.  He  was  a. 
Democrat  in  politics,  but  disliked  Martin  Van  Buren, 
and  voted  against  the  independent  treasury  bill,  and 
did  not  vote  for  Van  Buren,  but  gave  a  hearty  support 
to  James  K.  Polk  for  President,  and  lived  and  died  a 
Democrat. 

My  personal  acquaintance  with-  Governor  Casey 
commenced  somewhere  about  18-16  or  '48,  when  we 
were  both  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
of  tins  State — he  from  Jefferson  and  I  from  Coles 
county.  At  one  of  the  sessions  between  '46  and  '50, 
he  was  elected  speaker  of  that  body,  arid  I  then  had 
an  ample  opportunity  of  having  verified  what  had: 
been  said  of  him  as  a  presiding  officer. 

Although  he  did  not  regularly  pursue  his  vocation 
as  preacher,  he  not  unfrequently  preached  Avhen  called 
upon  by  his  Methodist  brethren  and  friends — some- 
times at  their  camp-meetings,  and  sometimes  in  their 
churches.     His  great  forte  was,  however,  as  presiding 
officer.     When  he  left  the  chair  and  spoke  from  the 
iloor  of  the  House,  although  always  dignified  and  sen- 
sible, yet  he  fell  far  below  his  performances  when  pre-- 
siding  as  Speaker. 
11 


162  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

We  became  very  intimate,  and  I  was  very  fond  of 
his  society.  He  was  not  in  the  least  hide-bound  or 
bigoted,  but  could  enjoy  a  joke  and  tell  as  good  a  story 
as  any  layman  of  my  acquaintance.  He  was  the  father 
of  glorious  old  Sam  Casey,  who  once  had  charge  of  the 
penitentiary  at  Joliet,  in  connection  with  my  friend, 
Samuel  Buckmaster,  and  who  resembled  his  father 
very  much  in  personal  appearance,  and  in  all  his  high 
social  qualities.  He  has  another  son,  Dr.  Newton 
Casey,  who  is  now  living  at  Mound  City,  Pulaski  Co., 
and  quite  eminent  in  his  profession ;  and  anotherliving 
at  Mt.  Vernon,  Jefferson  Co.,  a  lawyer,  Thomas  Casey, 
who  has  recently  and  for  a  good  many  years,  been  a 
member  of  the  legislature  of  Illinois.  He  is  said  to 
be  a  man  of  considerable  talent;  his  son,  Dr.  John 
Casey,  lives  at  Joliet. 

Gov.  Casey  has  been  dead  some  six  or  eight  years. 
His  son  Samuel  died  some  three  or  four  years  ago. 

I  have  inserted  Gov.  Casey's  name  in  these  me- 
moirs because  he  made  his  mark  here  in  early  times 
and  filled  high  stations,  both  State  and  National,  and 
filled  as  large  a  place  in  public  estimation  for  a  period 
of  over  forty  years  as  any  man  who  ever  lived  or  died 
in  Illinois. 


LYMAN  TRUMBULL.  163 


LYMAST  TEUMBTJLL. 


disposed  of  my  old  friend  Zadock 
Casey.  I  will  introduce  to  the  notice  of  the 
public  a  man  whose  name  is  familiar  to  every 
school-boy  in  this  nation;  and  of  course  known  to 
every  one  who  is  familiar  with  the  history  of  our 
country,  and  I  presume  even  beyond  the  limits  of  our 
Republic — I  mean  Lyman  Trumbull,  late  Senator  in 
Congress  from  the  State  of  Illinois.  My  acquaintance 
with  him  commenced  (as  well  as  I  now  recollect)  about 
1838-39  or  1840. 

I  have  already  incidentally  alluded  to  him  before, 
where  we  were  opposed  to  each  other  in  the  trial  in 
which  Vandeevers,  the  hotel  keeper  at  Kaskaskia,  was 
the  plaintiff — in  which  he  was  for  the  plaintiff,  and  I 
was  for  the  defendant.  He  was  a  very  able  circuit 
court  lawyer,  and  indeed  a  profound  and  learned  law- 
yer in  any  court,  State  or  National.  I  think  it  was  on 
the  Mississippi  Circuit  in  1841,  at  the  Circuit  Court 
in  St.  Clair  county,  that  Trumbull,  Koerner  and  my- 
self defended  an  Irishman  indicted  for  the  murder  of 
his  wife.  '  According  to  the  evidence  this  murder 
should  have  occurred  between  St.  Louis  and  Belleville, 
fourteen  miles  distant  from  St.  Louis.  I  relate  this 
incident  for  the  purpose  of  enlivening  these  pages 


164:  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

with  a  very  amusing  occurrence  that  took  place  during 
the  trial  of  the  case.  At  the  post  mortem  examina* 
tion  of  the  woman,  a  great  many  physicians  were 
present,  the  most  eminent  of  whom  was  Dr.  Smith; 
also  several  others,  and  amongst  them  one  Dr.  Goforth, 
who  was  familiarly  known  as  old  Pills.  "We  had  the 
precaution  to  have  these  doctors  separated,  that  they 
should  not  hear  each  other's  testimony.  Dr.  Smith 
was  first  examined,  whose  testimony  was  rather  dam- 
aging to  our  client;  but  we  got  him  to  state  so  many 
particulars  in  reference  to  the  appearances  that  we  felt 
assured  in  our  own  minds  that  the  doctors  who  would 
be  subsequently  called  would  never  agree  with  Dr. 
Smith,  for  he  had  sworn  that  the  cause  of  her  death 
was  choking  or  strangulation,  and  not  from  any  blows 
or  external  violence  upon  her  body  or  chest.  The 
next  doctor  called  was  old  Pills,  who  swore  that  he 
was  present  at  the  post  mortem  examination,  and  we 
asked  him,  "  Did  you  and  Dr.  Smith  agree  as  to  the 
cause  of  her  death?  " 

He  said  they  did.  I  asked  him  what  was  the  cause 
they  agreed  upon.  He  answered:  "We  perfectly 
agreed  that  it  was  caused  by  blows  and  external  vio- 
lence upon  her  chest." 

"Doctor,"  said  I,  "might  it  not  have  been  caused 
by  choking  or  strangulation?" 

"  No,  sir,"  said  he,  "  we  all  agreed  it  was  caused  by 
external  violence,  as  I  have  already  stated." 

I  .asked  him  if  he  had  seen  any  marks  or  bruises 
upon  her  chest.  He  said  he  had  not.  I  said :  "  "Well, 
how  do  you  undertake  to  say,  if  there  were  no  external 
marks  or  bruises  upon  her  chest,  that  death  resulted 
from  the  cause  you  have  stated  ? " 


LYMAN  TRUMBULL.  165 

"  Oh,"  said  he,  "  that  often  occurs  where  violence  is 
used,  and  no  outward  sign  appearing  thereof ;  con- 
gestion of  the  lungs  takes  place,  as  in  this  instance." 

There  we  dropped  him.  Trumbull  and  Koerner  led 
off  in  the  argument  on  the  part  of  the  defense,  and  it 
is  due  to  them  to  say  that  they  really  made  the  main 
argument  in  the  case.  They  left  the  closing  speech  to 
me,  and  I  ventured  upon  a  very  dangerous  experiment, 
which  I  never  did  before,  and  never  have  done  since, 
and  that  was  telling  a  story  in  a  murder  case,  which 
excited  a  universal  laugh.  I  alluded  to  the  testimony 
of  Dr.  Smith,  who  had  testified  she  died  from  choking: 

7  O 

or  strangulation ;  then  I  came  to  the  testimony  of  Old 
Pills  (whose  evidence  was  in  direct  contradiction  of 
Dr.  Smith,  as  the  reader  will  remember).  I  said: 

"  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  there  is  an  old  adage  or 
motto  'that  when  doctors  disagree,. who  is  to  decide?' 
Dr.  Goforth  (Old  Pills),  has  sworn  that  death  could  be 
produced  by  external  violence  upon  the  chest  when  no 
external  marks  or  bruises  would  appear  thereon.  This 
reminds  me,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  of  a  story  I  heard 
many  years  ago  of  old  General  Scott  (not  Winfield), 
who  went  from  Virginia  to  Kentucky  in  very  early 
times,  and  on  his  return  his  friends  and  neighbors  came 
to  see  him,  and  asked  him  to  give  them  a  description 
of  the  country.  He  said  he  never  had  seen  such  forests 
in  his  life — oak,  chestnut  and  sugar  trees  reaching  up 
two  and  three  hundred  feet  in  altitude,  and  being  from 

7  P5 

fifteen  to  twenty  feet  in  diameter,  and  growing  so  close 
together  that  nowhere  were  these  trees  more  than  five 
or  six  feet  apart  from  each  other.  '  Now,  General,' 
said  they,  '  tell  us  something  about  the  game  in  that 


166  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

country.'  '  "Well/  said  he,  1 1  saw  deer  and  elk  there 
whose  enormous  antlers  would  measure  at  least  fifteen 
feet  from  the  tip  of  one  horn  to  the  tip  of  the  other.' 
'Did  they  frequent  these  forests,  General?'  said  one  of 
his  auditors.  '  Oh,  yes,'  said  the  General.  '  Then  how 
did  they  manage  to  get  through  these  enormous  trees, 
growing  so  close  together?'  'Oh,  by  h — 1,  sir,'  said 
the  General,  '  that  is  their  lookout  and  not  mine.' " 

The  jury  saw  the  application  to  Old  Pills'  testimony, 
and  all  I  have  got  to  say  in  reference  to  that  trial  is 
that  the  story  did  not  prevent  the  jury  from  returning 
a  verdict  of  acquittal  in  a  few  minutes  after  their 
retirement. 

After  the  jury  had  returned  their  verdict,  I  left  the 
court  house,  and  went  across  the  street  to  my  hotel 
and  sat  down  to  dinner;  and  while  I  was  partaking  of 
roast  turkey  and  other  good  things,  I  suddenly  felt  a 
man's  hand  in  the  hair  of  my  head  and  lie  lifted  me 
on  to  my  feet,  and  turned  me  around  towards  him. 
It  was  Old  Pills.  He  let  go  of  my  hair  and  suddenly 
produced  a  small  pair  of  pistols,  one  in  each  hand  and 
said:  "  Linder,  will  you  live  or  die?  You  have  this 
day  ruined  my  reputation  as  a  physician." 

I  speedily  replied:  "I  prefer  to  live." 

He  invited  me  to  take  one  of  the  pistols  and  defend 
myself,  but  \>y  this  time  Johnson,  my  landlord,  and 
several  others  of  my  friends,  came  to  my  relief,  and 
disarmed  Old  Pills.  He  left,  and  never  attempted  to 
molest  me  thereafter. 

Trumbull  at  this  time  I  think  resided  in  Belleville. 
Judge  Breese  was  our  presiding  Judge.  After  this 
time  Trumbull  was  elected  to  the  legislature  of  Illi- 


LYMAN  TKUMBULL.  167 

nois,  and  though  a  young  man,  he  soon  became  the 
leader  of  the  Democratic  party  in  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives. During  Ford's  administration  as  Gov- 

o 

ernorof  the  State  of  Illinois,  Trumbull  was  appointed 
Secretary  of  State,  the  duties  of  which  office  he  dis- 
charged with  great  ability.  He  went  on  to  the 
Supreme  bench,  and  those  who  have  read  his  opinions 
know  that  he  had  but  few  equals  as  a  jurist.  He  was 
elected  to  the  House  of  Representatives  in  Congress 
from  the  Belleville*  district,  and  that  same  winter 
the  Republican  party  failing  to  unite  on  Lincoln, 
elected  him  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  This 
was  in  1855.  This  produced  some  heart-burnings 
amongst  some  of  Lincoln's  friends,  and  one  of  them 
publicly  charged  Trumbull  with  intriguing  for  and 
cheating  Lincoln  out  of  his  place.^  This  charge  I 
have  no  doubt  was  false,  of  which  Lincoln  acquitted 
him  in  1858,  when  running  against  Douglas  for  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States.  Trumbull  continued 
our  Senator  until  after  the  close  of  Johnson's  admin- 
istration as  President,  and  if  anything  he  has  done  as 
a  public  man  will  reflect  more  honor  upon  him  than 
any  other  of  his  acts  as  a  statesman  and  a  patriot,  and 
hand  his  name  down  to  the  latest  posterity,  it  will  be 
the  course  he  pursued  as  Senator  on  the  impeachment 
of  Andrew  Johnson.  Trumbull  being  a  Republican 
and  having  opposed  the  administration  of  Johnson, 
it  was  expected  by  his  party  friends  that  he  would, 
on  pure  party  grounds,  vote  for  his  conviction.  But 
Trumbull  was  too  pure  a  statesman  and  patriot  to  allow 
himself  to  be  used  by  his  party  for  such  a  base  and  dis- 
honorable purpose.  lie  went  for  his  acquittal,  and  the 


168  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

opinion  that  lie  delivered  on  that  occasion  was  one  of 
the  best  of  all  those  delivered  by  any  of  the  Senators. 
That  opinion  will  remain  an  enduring  monument  of  his 
greatness  to  the  end  of  time,  and  will  constitute  the 
brightest  page  in  our  country's  history. 

Towards  the  end  of  Mr.  Trumbull's  senatorial  career, 
he  became  dissatisfied  with  the  course  of  the  Republi- 
can party,  and  when  a  considerable  number  of  the  dis- 
affected Republicans  united  with  the  Democratic  party 
in  forming  what  was  called  the  "Liberal  Republican 
Party,"  Mr.  Trumbull  was  one  of  the  movers  and 
leaders  of  that  coalition.  His  name  was  very  favor* 
ably  spoken  of  as  a  candidate  of  that  party  for  the 
Presidency.  But  Mr.  Greeley  got  the  nomination,  and 
Mr.  Trumbull  supported  him  with  hearty  good  will. 
Since  the  expiration  of  his  term  in  the  Senate  he  has 
retired  from  public  life,  and  returned  to  the  practice 
of  his  profession,  in  which  he  is  doing  a  very  lucrative 
business  in  the  courts  of  Chicago,  both  State  and  Fed- 
eral, and  in  the  Supreme  Courts  of  Illinois  and  of  the 
United  States,  standing  at  the  very  head  of  the  bar. 
But  I  have  no  doubt,  if  he  will  consent,  that  the 
Democratic  party,  which  is  just  coming  into  power, 
will  recall  him  into  political  life.  What  place  they 
will  tender  him  I  cannot  say,  but  I  doubt  not  that  it 
will  be  one  of  the  highest. 

Judge  Trumbull  is  now  about  sixty-two  or  three 
years  of  age,  but  does  not  look  to  be  more  than  fifty. 
He  has  always  been  a  very  temperate  man,  and  hav- 
ing had  a  good  constitution,  is  therefore  very  well 
preserved.  Judge  Trumbull's  name  I  see  is  amongst 
the  list  of  those  who  lately  formed  the  Jefferson ian 


LYMAN  TBUMBULL.  169 

Club  in  Chicago,  which  is  but  another  name  for  Demo- 
cratic Club.  It  must  be  very  gratifying  to  him  that 
after  the  abuse  heaped  upon  him  by  the'hot  partisans 
of  the  Republican  party  for  the  course  he  pursued  on 
the  impeachment  of  President  Johnson,  nearly  the 
whole  nation  now  indorse  and  approve  his  course  on 
that  trial. 

He  would  make  a  splendid  President,  and  if  my 
vote  would  elevate  him  to  that  office,  he  would  not  be 
long  out  of  the  "White  House.  Judge  Trumbull  and 
myself  for  more  than  thirty  years  have  been  warm 
personal  friends,  and  I  have  received  many  kind  favors 
at  his  hand.  He  bids  fair  to  yet  live  some  fifteen  or 
twenty  years.  That  his  life  may  be  a  long  and  happy 
one  is  the  warm  wish  of  his  old  friend,  the  author  of 
this  imperfect  sketch. 


170  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


EICHAED  J.  OGLESBY. 


1IIE  next  person  I  shall  introduce  in  these 
memoirs  w^ll  be  Richard  J.  Oglesby.  He  is 
a  native,  I  believe,  of  Kentucky,  but  of  that  I 
cannot  speak  positively.  I  became  acquainted  with 
him  somewhere  about  the  year  1841,  when  lie  was  a 
very  young  man,  and  had  been  but  a  short  time  at  the 
bar.  At  that  time  he  lived  in  Sullivan,  Moultrie 
county,  Ills.  From  the  beginning  of  his  professional 
career  he  gave  evidences  of  great  promise  and  of  future 
eminence  and  distinction.  He  was  one  of  the  most 
social  young  men  I  ever  knew,  and  paid  deference  to 
the  talented  and  senior  members  of  the  bar,  not  obse- 
quious, but  respectful  and  almost  filial.  I  loved  him 
almost  as  a  man  \vould  love  a  son,  which  was  fully 
returned.  Some  of  the  happiest  days  of  my  life  I  spent 
in  his  society,  and  he  has  often  made  me  laugh  to  the 
very  splitting  of  my  sides. 

I  will  relate  a  little  incident  here  which  occurred  at 
the  Shelbyville  Circuit  Court,  where  "Dick"  and  I 
were  attending  as  lawyers,  to  which  I  know  he  will 
not  take  any  exceptions.  But  that  the  reader  may 
perfectly  enjoy  what  I  am  about  to  relate,  I  will  go  a 
little  behind  it  and  say  that  he  had  previously  told  me 
that  he  had  courted  a  beautiful  girl  in  Macon  county, 


RICHARD  J.  OGLESBY.  171 

Ills.,  to  whom  he  had  been  engaged  and  was  very 
much  attached,  but  through  the  influence  of  her  rela- 
tives she  had  been  forced  to  throw  him  overboard, 
and  had  become  engaged  to  a  wealthy  farmer,  a  brother 
to  her  brother-in-law.  This  he  told  some  days  before 
the  incident  I  am  about  to  relate  happened.  When 
one  day  during  court  week  at  Shelbyville,  he  came 
to  my  hotel,  at  Tacket's,  with  a  woe-begone  counte- 
nance,'and  invited  me  to  take  a  walk  with  him,  which 
I  cheerfully  did.  Said  I,  «  What  is  it,  friend  Dick? " 
after  we  had  started.  Said  he,  "  My  lady-love  with  her 
husband  is  at  the  next  hotel ;  they  were  married  yes- 
terday, and  are  making  their  bridal  tour.  I  want  you 
to  go  with  me  and  look  at  her,  and  see  if  she  is  riot  as 
beautiful  and  lovely  as  I  have  described  her  to  you." 

Dick  and  I  went  to  the  hdtel  and  took  our  position 
at  a  door  outside  of  the  hotel,  where  we  had  a  full  view 
-of  her  in  the  sitting-room  and  she  had  a  full  view  of 
us.  She  was  as  beautiful  as  "  Hebe  " — a  perfect  vision 
of  loveliness.  I  saw  in  a  moment  that  she  took  cog- 
nizance of  Dick's  presence,  having  turned  her  face,  full 
of  love  and  tenderness,  towards  him,  which  look  she 
did  not  withdraw.  Dick  said  to  me,  in  a  tone  I  think 
loud  enough  for  her  to  hear: 

"Look  at  her;  isn't  she  an  angel?  She  loves  me 
better  than  she  does  her  husband,  and  by  heaven!  this 
moment  her  heart  is  breaking  for  me!  "  Said  he, 
"  Linder,  do  you  see  that  ring  on  her  finger?  I  gave 
her  that  ring  and  placed  it  on  her  dear  finger.  It  was 
our  engagement  ring.  By  Heaven!  isn't  it  too  hard 
to  have  such  a  treasure  as  she  is  thus  rudely  snatched 
from  my  arms?" 


172  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

I  could  stand  it  no  longer.  I  pulled  him  away  from 
where  we  were  standing,  and  after  we  had  got  far 
enough  where  I  could  do  it  with  impunity,  I  gave 
vent  to  an  uproarious  fit  of  laughter,  in  which  Dick 
after  a  time  heartily  joined.  It  certainly  was  one  of 
the  most  laughable  scenes  I  ever  witnessed.  I  don't 
think  however  that  it  broke  Dick's  heart,  for  I  noticed 
that  he  could  eat  as  hearty  a  dinner  after  this  incident 
as  before. 

My  acquaintance  with  Dick  continued  until  he  went 
into  the  Mexican  war.  He  belonged  to  Col.  E.  D. 
Baker's  regiment,  and  was  I  think  a  lieutenant  in 
one  of  his  companies.  He  was  at  the  battle  of  Cerro 
Gordo,  and  fought  all  the  way  up  to  the  city  of  Mex- 
ico. He  gave  me  a  very  graphic  description  of  the 
battle  of  Cerro  Gordo.  The  Mexicans  occupied  the 
heights  of  Cerro  Gordo,  while  our  army  occupied  the 
foot  of  the  heights  be^v,  and  had  almost  literally  to 
climb  to  get  to  the  enemy.  The  Mexicans  had  strongly 
fortified  their  position,  and  it  looked  almost  like  an 
impossibility  to  scale  the  heights  and  drive  them  from 
their  fortifications.  Dick  told  me  that  our  army  was 
drawn  up  at  the  very  foot  of  Cerro  Gordo  heights,  and 
had  orders  not  to  make  any  attack  or  forward  move- 
ment on  the  enemy  until  the  General-in-Chief,  Gen- 
eral Scott,  should  make  his  appearance  on  the  field. 
General  Scptt  had  arranged  his  plan  and  mode  of  attack 
with  consummate  skill  and  ability,  and  each  General 
and  Colonel  had  received  written  orders  from  him  of 
their  precise  position,  and  the  route  by  which  they 
should  ascend  the  acclivity.  He  said  as  soon  as  they 
had  taken  up  their  position,  the  enemy  opened  with 


RICHARD  J.  OGLESBY.  173 

their  artillery  upon  them,  but  having  to  shoot  so 
straight  down,  their  shot  mostly  went  over  their  heads. 
But  being  within  range  of  their  smaller  arms,  their 
fire  here  and  there  took  effect  and  caused  some  gallant 
fellows  to  bite  the  dust.  It  was  here  that  General 
Shields  received  the  wound  which  I  have  heretofore 
related  in  the  sketch  I  have  given  of  him,  which  very 
nearly  cost  him  his  life. 

Dick  said:  "We  waited  with  the  greatest  impa- 
tience for  the  appearance  of  General  Scott,  and  after  the 
lapse  of  about  thirty  minutes  we  heard  shouts  and 
cheers  coming  up  from  the  left  wring  of  our  army  that 
made  the  very  \velkin  ring.  We  looked  down  our  line 
and  saw  General  Scott,  dressed  in  splendid  uniform, 
mounted  on  a  white  charger,  approaching  our  center 
from  the  rear.  It  was  the  most  imposing  sight  I  ever 
saw;  he  looked  more  to  me  like  a  god  than  a  man, 
and  the  difficulties  of  our  situation  vanished  from  our 
thoughts.  His  appearance  inspired  universal  confi- 
dence, and  I  don't  believe  there  was  a  soldier  in  that 
army  but  who  felt  assured  of  victory. 

"After  giving  him  another  hearty  cheer  from  our  wing 
of  the  army,  our  bugles  sounded  the  charge,  and  with 
fixed  bayonets  we  ascended  the  heights  by  the  differ- 
ent routes  which  had  been  before  designated  in  the 
written  orders  of  General  Scott,  and  in  less  than  twenty 
minutes  we  were  in  possession  of  the  enemy's  fortifi- 
cations, and  he  was  on  his  flight  to  the  city  of  Mexico." 

Said  he,  "  Linder,  had  we  been  defending  those 
works  instead  of  the  Mexicans,  an  army  of  five  times 
our  number  could  not  have  taken  them;  but  I  do 
believe  that  the  shout  of  our  American  boys  was 


LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

almost  enough  of  itself  to  put  a  mongrel  and  degen- 
erate race  of  men  to  flight." 

He  went  with  Scott  up  to  the  city  of  Mexico,  and 
was  in  every  battle  that  took  place  between  Cerro 
Gordo  and  the  ancient  capital  of  the  Aztecs,  and  did 
not  leave  the  army  until  he  saw  the  stars  and  stripes 
waving  over  the  halls  of  the  Montezumas. 

Dick  then  returned  to  the  United  States,  covered 
with  glory;  and  when  it  was  ascertained  that  gold  had 
been  discovered  in  large  and  paying  quantities  in  Cal- 
ifornia, which  we  had  acquired  by  our  arms  and  treaty 
with  Mexico,  Dick  rigged  up  an  outfit  and  crossed  the 
plains  to  this  new  El  Dorado.  After  working  in  the 
placers  till  lie  realized  between  eight  and  ten  thousand 
dollars  in  gold,  he  returned  again  to  the  States,  and 
after  putting  his  financial  affairs  into  a  favorable  pos- 
ture by  forming  a  mercantile  partnership  with  his 
brother-in-law,  Mr.  Prather,  being  still  unmarried,  he 
determined  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  Holy,  Land,  and  he 
did  so;  and  at  our  last  meeting,  at  the  unveiling  of 
Lincoln's  statue,  he  gave  me  a  description  of  his  trip, 
which  being  too  long  to  insert  at  full  length  here,  let 
it  suffice  to  say  that  he  crossed  the  ocean  and  landed 
at  Grand  Cairo,  and  took  the  route  as  near  as  he  could 
guess  along  which  Moses  had  led  the  armies  of  Israel, 
lie  gave  me  a  description  of  Mount  Sinai,  on  the  top 
of  which  he  had  stood;  also  of  Petrea,  that  city  liter- 
ally hewn  out  of  solid  rock:  also  of  Jerusalem,  the 
Dead  Sea,  the  Jordan,  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  many 
other  places  in  the  Holy  Land  where  our  blessed  Lord 
and  his  disciples  had  sojourned  and  delivered  to  the 
people  the  glad  tidings  of  peace  on  earth  and  good 


BICHAKD  J.  OGLESBT.  175 

will  towards  man.  He  told  me  that  he  was  in  Beth- 
lehem, Cana  of  Galilee,  and  the  tomb,  as  it  was  sup- 
posed, where  Joseph  of  Aramathea  laid  the  body  of 
our  Savior. 

I  don't  know  how  long  he  sojourned  in  the  Holy 
Land,  but  he  returned  to  the  United  States  safe  and 
sound,  and  when  the  civil  war  broke  out  in  1861,  he 
raised  a  regiment,  and  before  the  war  had  been  long 
pending  he  rose  by  his  gallantry  to  the  position  of 
Brigadier  General.  He  was  in  several  skirmishes  and 
battles,  and  particularly  the  battle  of  Fort  Donaldson, 
where  he  was  severely  wounded;  so  much  so  that  he 
was  forced  to  throw  up  his  commission,  leave  the 
army  and  return  to  his  family  at  Decatur,  Illinois. 

Since  that  time  his  course  has  been  onward  and 
upward,  having  been  twice  elected  Governor  of  Illi- 
nois, but  did  no*7 serve  his  second  term,  having  been 
elected  by  the  Legislature  of  Illinois  to  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States,  which  position  he  now  fills,  and  in 
which  I  trust  and  believe  he  will  so  act  as  to  continue 
therein  for  aiany  long  years,  or  be  elevated  to  a  still 
higher  place. 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  Oglesby,  as  I  have 
already  hinted,  at  the  unveiling  of  Lincoln's  statue 
near  Springfield,  where  a  splendid  monument  has  been 
erected  to  the  honor  and  memory  of  our  martyr- 
President,  Oglesby  being  appointed  to  deliver  the  ora- 
tion commemorative  of  Lincoln's  life  and  public  ser- 
vices, which  was  done  in  a  masterly  manner.  In  this 
oration  he  ran  the  parallel  between  Lincoln  and 
Douglas,  doing  equal  honor  to  both,  and  not  in  the 
slightest  degree  detracting  from  the  merits  and  glory 


176  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

of  Douglas.  On  that  occasion  there  were  present 
many  invited  guests;  and  among  them  were  President 
Grant,  Gen.  Sherman,  Gen.  John  Pope,  ex- Vice  Pres- 
ident Colfax,  our  late  Yice  President  Henry  Wilson, 
Hon.  David  Davis,  Hon.  Joe  Gillespie,  Gen.  Custar, 
Hon.  John  A.  Logan,  and  others,  amongst  whom  was 
your  humble  servant.  This  is  the  last  time  but  one 
that  I  saw  Richard  J.  Oglesby  to  speak  to  him, 
when  and  where  we  had  a  long  and  agreeable  conver- 
sation about  past  times.  I  met  him  at  the  Governor's 
mansion,  where  he  gave  a  reception,  and  all  persons 
who  desired  it  were  permitted  to  come  and  shake  him 
by  the  hand. 

I  must  now  take  my  leave  of  my  old  friend  Oglesby. 
1  am  getting  old  and  do  not  expect  to  live  long  enough 
to  dispose  of  the  materials  which  he  shall  hereafter 
furnish  for  some  future  biographer.  Doubtless  some 
abler  pen  than  mine  will  take  charge  of  his  future 
fame,  and  give  him  his  proper  place  in  history. 


WILLIAM  H.  BISSELL.  177 


WILLIAM  H.  BISSELL. 


[jHE  next  name  that  I  shallintroduce  into  these 
memoirs  is  that  of  Gov.  William  II.  Bissell. 
He  was  an  intimate  acquaintance  and  a  warm 
personal  friend  of  mine,  but  the  precise  time  when  our 
acquaintance  commenced  I  cannot  now  call  to  mind, 
hut  it  was  prior  to  the  Mexican  war  and  since  I  come 
to  think  of  it,  it  was  in  1841.  He  had  been  a  prac- 
ticing physician,  but  becoming  disgusted  with  his  pro- 
fession, studied  law,  and  was  admitted  to  the  bar  about 
that  time,  and  I  met  him  at  Greenville,  in  Bond  county, 
at  the  spring  term  of  the  Bond  Circuit  Court. 

He  was  a  man  of  great  elocutionary  powers,  and  there 
was  a  vein  of  scathing  and  burning  satire  which  occa- 
sionally ran  through  his  speeches.  I  remember  at  that 
term  of  the  court  a  case  in  which  a  quack  physician  had 
brought  suit  for  his  professional  services,  wherein  Bis- 
sell WRS  for  the  defendant.  Bissell  having  been  a 'good 
physician  himself,  managed  to  get  in  testimony  show- 
ing the  plaintiff's  want  of  qualifications,  and  that  he 
had  mismanaged  the  case.  In  his  speech  to  the  jury, 
after  he  had  reviewed  the  testimony,  showing  up  the 
fellow's  ignorance,  he  told  them  that  if  ever  the  United 
States  should  get  into  a  war  with  England,  it  would 
be  very  foolish  in  Uncle  Sam  to  waste  the  blood  and 
12 


178  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

treasure  of  the  nation  in  the  prosecution  of  such  a  war; 
for  all  it  would  be  necessary  for  him  to  do  would  be  for 
him  to  hire  this  plaintiff  to  go  over  into  Canada  and 
there  practice  his  profession,  and  he  would  slaughter 
the  Queen's  subjects  with  his  nostrums  worse  than 
Samson  slaughtered  the  Philistines  with  the  jaw-bone 
of  an  ass.  Suffice  it  to  say  the  jury  returned  a  verdict 
in  favor  of  Bissell's  client. 

Bissell  was  one  of  our  Colonels  in  the  Mexican 
war;  had  one  of  the  best  disciplined  regiments  in  the 
service,  and  was  with  General  Taylor  in  all  his  battles 
from  Palo  Alto  to  Buena  Vista.  I  was  told  by  a  friend 
who  was  in  that  battle,  that  they  fought  more  like 
regulars  than  volunteers;  that  they  would  deliver 
their  fire  and  charge  the  Mexicans  with  fixed  bayonets, 
and  then  retire  in  slow  and  regular  step  and  in  good 
order,  with  their  face  to  the  enemy,  re-loading  their 
guns  as  they  slowly  retired,  and  when  accomplished, 
they  returned  and  again  delivered  their  fire  and  charge 
and  again  retire  as  before,  and  this  they  kept  up, 
maintaining  perfect  order,  for  three  or  four  hours  dur- 
ing one  of  the  three  days  of  that  bloody  battle  where 
we  had  about  four  thousand  men,  all  volunteers  with 
the  exception  of  about  four  hundred  regulars,  and 
Santa  Anna  had  twenty  thousand  regulars,  mostly 
lancers,  being  the  very  flower  of  the  Mexican  army. 

It  was  in  this  battle  where  Col.  Henry  Clay,  Jr.,  the 
favorite  son  of  the  glorious  old  "  Harry  of  the  West," 
Col.  Key  of  Kentucky,  and  our  own  Col.  John  J.  Har-' 
din,  of  Illinois,  fell. 

I  must  relate  a  little  incident  here  that  occurred 
^between  old  Zac  Taylor  and  one  of  his  aids.  After 


WILLIAM  H.  BISSELL.  179 

our  troops  had  fought  for  two  long  days,  and  the  tide 
of  battle  seemed  going  against  us,  his  aid  rode  up  to 
him  and  said,  "  Gen.  Taylor,  our  boys  are  certainly 
whipped."  "  Yes,"  said  Taylor,  "  I  know  it,  but  the 

d d  fools  don't  know  they  are  whipped,  and  they 

will  fight  on  un'.il  the  Mexicans  will  be  compelled  to 
retire  ingloriously  from  the  contest,"  which  prediction 
was  fully  accomplished  on  the  last  day  of  the  battle. 
In  this  battle  Col.  Jeflf  Davis,  late  President  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy,  commanded  a  Mississippi  regi- 
ment that  did  good  execution,  and  behaved  with  great 
bravery;  but  Davis,  not  being  willing  to  shaje  with 
the  rest  of  the  army,  tried  to  run  off  with  all  the  glory; 
and  after  the  war  was  over,  and  he  and  Bissell  were 
both  members  of  Congress,  the  first  in  the  Senate  and 
the  latter  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  Davis 
inflde  a  speech  in  the  Senate  in  which  he  attempted 
to  claim  for  his  regiment  the  glory  which  truly  be- 
longed to  the  Illinois  troops,  and  especially  to  Bissell's 
reoriment.  '  Bissell  called  the  attention  of  his  House 
to  the  speech  of  Davis,  and  administered  to  him  a  most 
withering  rebuke,  and  charged  him  with  deliberate 

O  »  -  o 

slander.  Thereupon  Davis  sent  him  a  challenge, 
which  Bissell  promptly  accepted;  and  Bissell  having 
the  choice  of  weapons  and  the  distance,  selected  mus- 
kets loaded  with  buckshot,  with  which  to  fight  at  the 
distance  of  twenty  paces,  Tbeir  friends,  seeing  that 
this  would  probably  result  in  the  death  of  both  par- 
ties, interfered,  and  the  matter  was  amicably  settled, 
which  was  not  displeasing  to  Davis  and  his  friends. 

After  this  affair,  Bissell's  popularity,  which  was  great 
before,  became  still  greater,  and  he  was  elected  Gov- 


180  LIXDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

ernor  of  Illinois.  He  was  originally  a  Democrat,  but 
finally,  I  think,  became  a  Free  Soiler.  He  died  before 
the  expiration  of  his  term  of  office.  Shortly  before 
his  death  he  attached  himself  to  the  Catholic  Church, 
and  died  in  the  triumphs  of  that  faith. 

I  know  of  nothing  more  of  interest  in  reference  to 
Gov.  William  H.  Bissell.  I  leave  him  therefore  to 
history,  which  doubtless  will  deal  kindly  with  him. 
He  had  some  faults,  but  they  were  to  himself,  over 
which  we  should  kindly  draw  the  veil  of  charity.  He 
has  left  to  posterity  the  stainless  name  of  a  soldier, 
statesman  and  a  patriot,  and  he  will  never  be  for- 
gotten as  long  as  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista  and  the 
victories  of  General  Taylor  are  remembered. 


DAVID  DAVIS.  181 


DAYID  DAVIS. 


HE  object  of  writing  these  memoirs  Is  not  sim- 
ply for  the  purpose  of  making  a  book  to  filch 
from  the  public  their  money,  but  to  preserve 
the  memory  and  deeds  of  worthy  men,  and  hand  them 
down  to  posterity,  that  the  coming  generations  may 
profit  by  their  example.  I  have  already  given  to  the 
public  some  of  the  most  brilliant  geniuses  of  the  State  of 
Illinois.  I  will  here  introduce  the  name  of  a  man 
with  whom  I  became  acquainted  at  a  very  early  period, 
to  whose  reputation  I  cannot  add  by  anything  I  may 
write  in  these  memoirs.  He  is  still  living,  and  one 
of  the  first  men  in  America,  and  is  one  of  the  judges 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  I  mean 
his  Honor,  David  Davis,  of  Bloomingtoii,  McLean 
county,  Illinois.  He  is  a  native  of  Maryland,  and 
descended  from  one  of  the  first  families  of  that  State, 
and  is  a  cousin  to  the  late  Winter  Davis,  of  Maryland. 
After  graduating  in  one  of  the  first  colleges  of  New 
England,  and  having  studied  law  with  a  distinguished 
barrister  whose  name  I  have  been  told  was  Bishop,  he 
came  to  this  State  when  quite  a  young  man,  and  set- 
tled in  the  town  of  Bloomington,  McLean  county,  Ills., 
and  opened  a  law  office  there,  where,  by  his  sagacity, 
economy  and  industry,  he  soon  won  his  way  to  a 
respectable  independence. 


182  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

He  was  elected  Circuit  Judge  some  time  between 
1846  and  '50  in  the  judicial  circuit  embracing  McLean 
county,  and  also  Sangamon,  including  Champaign, 
Yermillion  and  Shelby;  for  which  promotion  he  was 
largely  indebted  to  his  old  and  tried  friend,  Abraham 
Lincoln ;  and  to  the  eternal  credit  of  Judge  Davis  be 
it  said,  he  never  forgot  it;  and  when  a  member  of  the 
convention  of  1860  that  nominated  the  Republican 
candidate  for  President,  his  Honor,  David  Davis,  had 
as  large  if  not  a  larger  share  in  bringing  about  the 
nomination  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  than  any  other  member  of 
that  convention.  And  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected, 
Davis  was  invited  to  accompany  him  as  one  of  his 
suite  to  Washington.  Mr.  Davis  is  a  very  large  man 
— about  six  feet  high,  very  corpulent,  and  weighing 
some  three  hundred  and  fifty  pounds.  He  accepted 
Mr.  Lincoln's  invitation,  and  being  somewhat  conspic- 
uous for  his  size  and  for  wearing  a  white  silk  hat,  the 
aspirants  for  office  perceived  by  the  attentions  paid  him 
by  Mr.  Lincoln  that  he  had  no  small  influence  with 
the  President-elect,  and  they  paid  about  as  much  court 
to  the  man  with  the  white  hat  as  to  Mr.  Lincoln  him- 
self. 

But  I  wish  to  go  back  to  the  time  when  he  was  Cir- 
cuit Judge  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  and 
myself  both  practiced  in  his  circuit — Mr.  Lincoln  in 
the  whole  of  it,  and  I  in  the  counties  of  Yermillion, 
Edgar  and  Shelby,  and  occasionally  in  Champaign. 
Judge  Davis  was  a  very  impartial  judge,  and  though 
not  intending  to  show  a  preference  for  one  of  his  law- 
yers over  another,  such  was  the  marked  difference  he 
showed  to  Mr.  Lincoln  that  Lincoln  threw  the  rest  of 


DAVID  DAVIS.  183 

us  into  the  shade.  But  as  Mr.  Lincoln  could  not  take 
both  sides  of  a  case,  Anthony  Thornton,  myself  and 
other  prominent  lawyers,  were  employed  on  the  oppo- 
site side  of  cases  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln  was  engaged  on 
one  side  or  the  other.  Judge  Davis. always  treated  me 
with  great  kindness  and  consideration,  and  I  wish  to 
state  here  before  going  further,  lest  the  reader  should 
think  that  my  practice  was  confined  to  cases  in  which  I 
was  opposed  .to  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  in  weighty  and  hotly 
contested  cases  we  were  often  associated  together,  so 

o  * 

that  I  cannot  say  that  I  was  at  all  damaged  by  the 
friendship  shown  for  him  by  his  Honor,  Judge  Davis. 
I  think  it  quite  likely  that  had  I  been  placed  in  the 
same  relation  to  Mr.  Lincoln  that  Judge  Davis  was,,  I 
should  have  shown  to  him  the  same  consideration  as 
was  shown  by  his  Honor,  Judge  Davis. 

Lincoln  and  myself  generally  put  up  at  the  same 
hotel,  and  frequently  slept  in  the  same  room,  and  not 
unfrequently  Lincoln  and  I  occupied  the  same  bed.. 
Judge  Davis  was  too  large  to  take  either  of  us  for  a. 
bed-fellow. 

Among  the  most  pleasant  days  of  my  life,  I  recall 
those  when  we  three  traveled  together  from  Danville 
to  Paris,  and  from  there  to  Shelbyville.  The  courts 
of  those  three  places  lasting  on  an  average  from  two  to 
three  weeks  each.  Ah!  What  glorious  fnn  we  had 
sometimes! 

I  will  give  a  little  incident  here  to  show  the  eccen- 
tricity of  Judge  Davis,  which  occurred  at  the  Paris  Cir- 
cuit Court.  Judge  Ilarlan.  who  was  then  judge  on  the 
circuit  sonth  of  him,  came  up  to  Paris  on  some  special 
business  of  his,  and  Judge  Davis,  observing  him  in- 


184  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

the  court  house,  invited  him  to  come  up  and  take  a 
seat  on  the  bench  beside  him,  which  Judge  Harlan 
did ;  and  while  there  a  little  appeal  case  came  up,  in 
which  there  was  only  about  three  dollars  in  controversy, 
in  which  I  was  .engaged.  I  read  a  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  which  I  thought  and  which  was  deci- 
sive of  the  case.  Jud<?e  Davis  turned  to  Harlan  and 

O 

whispered  in  his  ear,  as  I  afterwards  learned  from 
Judge  Harlan,  "Great  God!"  said  he,  "for  a  lawyer 
of  Linder's  age  and  standing  to  read  a  decision  of  the 
Supreme  Court  in  a  little  appeal  case  where  there  are 
only  three  dollars  in  dispute!  "  lie  nevertheless  gave 
a  decision  in  favor  of  my  client. 

Another  little  circumstance  I  will  relate,  going  fur- 
ther to  show  his  eccentricity  and  his  friendship  for  me. 
Sometime  in  the  year,  I  think  of  1850,  I  went  up  to 
Springfield,  either  on  a  visit  or  on  some  business  or 
other,  when  Judge  Davis  was  holding  his  court  there; 
and  I  "had  landed  but  about  an  hour  when  the  prose- 
cuting attorney  hearing  that  I  was  in  town,  came  and 
employed  me  to  assist  him  in  the  prosecution  of  a 
woman  and  her  paramour  for  the  murder  of  her  hus- 
band by  the  administration  of  poison.  As  I  entered 
the  court  room,  Judge  Davis  being  on  the  bench  and 
perceiving  me  enter  the  room  with  my  pipe  in  my 
mouth,  said  in  an  audible  voice:  "Mr.  Sheriff,  you 
will  permit  no  one  to  smoke  in  this  room  while  court 
is  in  session  except  General  Linder." 

It  created  quite  a  laugh  all  over  the  house,  and  you 
may  rest  assured  I  was  not  so  modest  or  self-denying  as 
to  refuse  to  take  advantage  of  the  permission  thus  given 
me  to  smoke  my  pipe  during  the  progress  of  the  trial. 


DAVID  DAVIS.  185 

On  this  trial  the  ablest  lawyers  of  Springfield  were 
engaged  in  the  defense.  Amongst  those  in  the  defense 
known  to  me  at  the  time  I  was  engaged  in  the  prose- 
cution, were  Abraham  Lincoln,  his  Honor  Judge 
Stephen  T.  Logan,  of  whom  I  have  given  a  sketch  in 
these  memoirs,  John  T.  Stewart,  Benjamin  Edwards, 
and  some  younger  lawyers  who  were  not  known  to  me. 
The  woman  on  trial  sat  in  the  midst  of  her  eminent 
counsel,  and  close  by  her  a  young  and  handsome  man, 
whom  I  took  to  be  her  paramour  and  associate  in 
crime.  During  the  progress  of  the  trial,  he  showed 
no  contrition,  but  put  on,  as  I  thought,  a  bold  and  im- 
pudent look,  and  frisked  about  and  got  law  books  and 
pointed  out  "pages  to  Lincoln  and  the  rest  of  the  law- 
yers in  defense. 

Thinks  I  to  myself,  "  My  young  chap,  when  I 
come  to  conclude  this  case,  I  will  not  fail  to  pay  my 
special  respects  to  you."  So  when  the  evidence  was 
through,  and  the  prosecuting  attorney  had  opened  the 
case,  and  Lincoln  and  his  three  associates  had  made 
their  speeches  in  the  defense,  it  came  to  my  time  to 
conclude  the  case.  I  had  no  intention  to  deal  with 
the  case  but  in  a-serious  and  solemn  manner,  and  after 
summing  up  the  evidence  and  showing  how  strongly 
it  pointed  to  the  guilt  of  the  woman  and  her  paramour, 
turned,  and  pointing  my  finger  to  the  man  I  supposed 
to  be  her  associate  in  crime,  I  said:  "Gentlemen  of 
the  jury,  if  you  wanted  any  additional  evidence  of 
this  man's  guilt,  it  would  only  be  necessary  for  you  to 
recur  to  his  boldness  and  impudence  on  this  trial;"  and 
pointing  to  his  face  said,  "  you  can  see  guilt  written 
all  over  his  countenance,"  when  he  calmly  rose  from 


186  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

his  seat  and  said,  in  not  an  angry  tone:  "General 
Linder,  you  are  mistaken;  I  am  not  the  criminal,  but 
my  name  is  Rosette;  I  am  a  lawyer,  and  one  of  the 
counsel  for  the  defendants." 

Worthy  reader,  you  cannot  imagine  my  revulsion 
of  feeling.  This  unfortunate  mistake  thoroughly  broke 
me  down,  and  I  limped  lamely  through  the  remainder 
of  my  argument.  This  miserable  mistake  of  mine 
soon  made  its  appearance  in  all  the  leading  papers  in 
the  Union. 

I  have  already  stated  that  Davis,  by  invitation  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  went  with  him  to  Washington,  and  was  present 
at  his  inauguration,  and  I  was  informed  remained  there 
for  some  considerable  time.  And  although  he  held 
no  cabinet  office  under  Mr.  Lincoln,  yet  it  was  pretty 
well  known  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  great  confidence  in 
Judge  Davis,  and  consulted  him  on  public  affairs  fre- 
quently during  those  dark  and  perilous  days  just  before 
and  after  the  war  commenced.  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  tendered  him  a  place  in  his  cabinet, 
but  Judge  Davis  waited  for  a  safer  and  more  perma- 
nent place.  His  ambition  was  to  reach  the  Supreme 
Bench  of  the  United  States,  and  after  a  while,  a  vacan- 
cy occurring,  Judge  Davis  was  appointed  to  fill  the 
place,  over  the  heads  of  such  men  as  Salmon  P.  Chase 
and  other  formidable  aspirants.  His  nomination  was 
confirmed  by  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  he 
still  holds  the  office  to  which  Mr.  Lincoln  appointed 
him. 

He  has  made  a  most  excellent  judge,  and  he  has 
delivered  some  opinions  on  constitutional  questions 
which  have  given  him  a  national  reputation  and  made 


DAVID  DAVIS.  187 

him  quite  popular  with  the  Democratic  party;  for 
instance,  the  case  of  Millikin,  Bowls  et  al.,  of  Indiana, 
who  were  convicted  by  a  court-martial  during  the  late 
war.  The  opinion  of  the  Court,  delivered  by  Judge 
Davis,  so  clearly  showed  the  illegality  and  unconsti- 
tutionality  of  the  action  and  sentence  of  the  court-mar- 
tial, that  everybody  of  all  parties  at  once  acquiesced 
in  the  correctness  of  the  opinion  of  the  Court.  Judge 
Davis  from  that  time  forth  was  spoken  of  by  nearly 
all  the  Democratic  party  and  a  portion  of  the  Repub- 
lican party  as  a  fit  person  to  be  run  for  the  presidency 
against  Grant.  But  the  liberal  Republicans  gave  him 
the  go-by,  and  nominated  Mr.  Greeley. 

Perhaps  after  all  it  is  well  they  did,  for  it  is  doubt- 
ful whether  any  one  at  that  time  could  have  beaten 
Gen.  Grant;  so  it  saved  Judge  Davis'  popularity  and 
leaves  it  unimpaired  for  future  uses.  He  is  still  a  man 
in  the  prime  of  life,  with  vigor  and  health  enough  to 
live  to  be  an  octogenarian,  with  unimpaired  intellectual 
powers. 

I  should  have  said  at  a  former  place  in  these  memoirs, 
that  after. the  death  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  Judge  Davis,  at 
the  request  of  the  relatives  and  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
administered  upon  his  estate;  and  he  did  it  so  faith- 
fully and  efficiently  that  in  no  long  time  after  he  entered 
on  the  duties  of  administrator,  and  perhaps  as  guar- 
dian of  the  children,  too,  he  settled  up  with  the  court 
and  distributed  to  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  the  heirs  over  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars  in  cash. 

I  have  nothing  further  to  say  as  to  Judge  Davis. 
After  he  shall  have  ended  his  career,  some  abler  pen 
than  mine  will  write  up  his  history,  to  whom  and  pos- 


188 


LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


terity  I  now  leave  him,  feeling  assured  that  he  has  a 
brilliant  future  ahead  of  him.  But  if  he  should  never 
get  any  higher  up,  a  Supreme  Judge  of  the  United 
States  worth  three  millions  of  dollars,  may  snap  his 
at  the  future. 


GUSTAVUS   KOERNER.  189 


GUSTAYUS  KOEEKER 


| HE  next  name  I  shall  introduce  into  these  my 
.recollections,  is  Judge  Gustavus  Koerner,  of 
Belleville,  Ills.  My  acquaintance  with  him 
commenced  in  1837,  at  the  spring  term  of  the  St.  Clair 
or  Belleville  Circuit  Court.  He  was  introduced  to  me 
by  Adam  Snyder,  and  by  him  commended  to  my  kind 
regards  and  friendship.  I  was  then  Attorney-General 
of  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  was  performing  my  duties 
as  such  on  that  circuit.  I  at  once  took  him  into  a  close 
friendship,  and  sent  him  in  my  place  to  the  grand  juries 
to  take  notes  of  the  evidence  and  frame  the  bills  of 
indictment  which  they  might  find,  which  he  did  well 
and  faithfully.  Mr.  Koerner  was  an  educated  young 
German,  having  graduated  at  one  of  the  best  universi- 
ties of  Germany ;  was  deeply  read  in  the  civil  law  of 
Continental  Europe,  and  all  that  seemed  most  wanting 
in  him  at  that  time  was  the  ability  to  correctly  pro- 
nounce the  English  language;  but  it  takes  along  time 
to  so  fix  and  school  the  mouth  and  tongue  of  a  Ger- 
man to  enable  him  to  speak  and  pronounce  our  lan- 
guage correctly.  In  time  however  Koerner  overcome 
to  a  considerable  extent  his  deficiencies  in  that  respect, 
but  never  thoroughly 


190  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

After  lie  had  practiced  law  for  several  years,  his 
countrymen  in  St.  Clair  county,  who  constituted  a 
majority  of  that  county,  sent  him  to  the  Legislature; 
and  my  recollection  now  is  that  he  continued  to  rep- 
resent them  in  the  lower  House  thereof  for  several 
sessions. 

During  Ford's  administration  as  Governor  of  Illi- 
nois, there  occurred  a  vacancy  on  the  bench  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  when  that  court  consisted 
of  nine  judges,  who  held  the  Circuit  Courts  also,  and 
Ford  appointed  him  to  fill  that  vacancy,  and  he  became 
one  of  the  nine  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court.  His 
decisions,  which  are  to  be  found  in  our  published 
reports,  read  well  and  give  evidence  of  his  being  pro- 
foundly read  in  the  civil  law,  and  also  in  the  common 
law  of  England. 

I  do  not  remember  now  when  he  went  off  the  bench, 
but  I  do  know  that  he  was  afterwards  nominated  and 
elected  by  the  Democrats  to  the  office  of  Lieutenant- 
Go  vernor  of  the  State.  He  has  filled  other  important 
offices  since  then,  and  I  think  has  been  consul  to  one 
of  the  German  States. 

When  he  was  appointed  Judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  Ford  did  it  in  deference  to  the  German  Demo- 
crats of  St.  Clair  county,  as  he  told  me  himself. 
There  were  from  six  to  ten  thousand  of  them,  and  they 
were  nearly  all  Democrats,  and  at  that  time  there  were 
more  Germans  in  St.  Clair  county  than  in  any  other 
locality  in  the  State.  In  reference  to  Koerner's  defi- 
ciencies in  the  pronunciation  of  the  English  language, 
I  will  give  one  word  which  has  stuck  to  him  till  this 
day.  He  could  never  correctly  pronounce  the  word 


GUSTAVUS   KOEKNER.  191 

arrive,  but  always  said  aioive,  and  lie  don't  stand  alone 
in  reference  to  this  error  amongst  educated  Germans. 

I  will  wind  up  my  notice  of  Mr.  Koerner  by  saying 
that  when  the  Liberal  Republican  party  was  formed, 
lie  gave  his  support  to  that  party  and  was  run  on  the 
ticket  with  Horace  Greeley,  as  the  liberal  candidate  for 
Governor  of  this  State,  but  as  we  all  know,  he  was 
defeated. 

Judge  Koerner  is  still  living  in  Belleville;  enjoys 
good  health,  and  is  about  sixty-two  years  of  age.  May 
long  life  and  happiness  attend  him  to  the  last. 


192  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


TIMOTHY  K.  YOUNG. 


WISH  now  to  introduce  to  the  notice  of  the 
reader  a  lawyer  friend  of  mine  who  is  still 
living  and  not  a  very  old  man  either,  but  one 
of  the  most  genial,  whole-souled  fellows  in  the  world; 
I  mean  Timothy  R.  Young,  of  Marshall,  Clark  County, 
Illinois.  The  beginning  of  my  acquaintance  with  him 
dates  back  to  the  year  1840  or  '42.  We  frequently 
met  on  the  circuit,  and  no  man  could  tell  a  better  story 
or  crack  a  richer  joke  than  my  friend  Timothy.  A 
great  many  of  his  stories,  if  I  could  remember  them, 
would  not  detract  from  the  interest  of  these  pages,  and 
there  are  others,  like  some  of  my  friend  Lincoln's,  that 
I  should  be  rather  afraid  to  introduce  here. 

Timothy  served  one  or  two  sessions  in  Congress 
from  Ficklin's  old  district.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  when  Col.  Benton  was  a 
member  of  the  Senate  from  Missouri.  I  allude  to 
this  circumstance  for  the  purpose  of  relating  a  very 
amusing  story  that  "  Tim  "  told  me  about  Col.  Benton. 
The  reader  will  remember  that  Col.  Benton  prosecuted 
a  showman  for  having  advertised  that  he  would  exhibit 
a  "  woolly-hoss "  which  Col.  Fremont  had  captured 
in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  had  tamed  him.  Col. 
Fremont,  as  everybody  knows,  is  the  son-in-law  of 


TIMOTHY  K.  YOUNG.  393 

Col.  Ben  ton.  Benton  left  the  Senate  temporarily,  and 
was  fourteen  days  engaged  in  prosecuting  the  show- 
man at  Washington  City.  One  day  about  the  end  of 
the  prosecution,  Timothy  met  Col.  Benton  on  Pennsyl- 
vania avenue,  who  came  strutting  along  like  a  con- 
quering hero.  Tim  asked  him  how  he  got  along  with 
the  prosecution  of  the  showman.  It  is  well  known 
by  all  those  who  know  anything  about  Col.  Benton, 
that  although  a  man  of  considerable  talent,  he  was 

O  7 

vain,  egotistic,  and  exceedingly  profane,  and  embel- 
lished his  discourse  at  the  beginning  or  end  of  nearly 
every  sentence  with  an  oath,  which  I  will  have  to 
omit,  as  I  expect  these  memoirs  will  meet  the  eyes 
of  many  pious  persons;  so  those  who  would  like  to 
have  his  answer  to  friend  Young  in  full  must  supply 
it  from  their  imagination.  "O!"  says  Benton,  "I 
have  beat  him,  by — ;  beat  him  on  chronology,  by — 
sir.  I  took  the  date  that  he  gave  as  the  time  of  the 
capture  of  the  '  Wooly-Hoss  '  by  Col.  Fremont,  and 
proved,  by  G — ,  sir,  that  Col.  Fremont  was  not  within- 
a  thousand  miles  of  the  place  of  the  capture  of  the 
horse  at  the  time  fixed  for  his  "capture  by  the  d — d' 
showman." 

"  Well,"  said  Tim,  "Col.  Benton,  I  am  at  a  loss  to 
understand  how  you  or  your  son-in-law.  Col.  Free- 
mont,  could  feel  the  least  annoyed  or  bestow  the  least 
attention  on  this  showman ;  for  what  does  it  matter 
whether  Col.  Freemont  caught  a  '  Wooly  Hoss  '  or  not 
in  the  Rocky  Mountains?" 

"What  does  it  matter?  By  G — d,  sir,"  says  Ben- 
ton,  "  this  a  matter  of  no  importance?  By  G — d,  sir? 

shall  I  suffer  a  d d  showman  to  connect  my  son- 

13 


104:  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

in-law's,  Col.  Fremont's  name — a  man  of  historic  char- 
acter, by  G — d,  sir,  as  being  the  catcher  and  tamer  of 
his  d d  '"Woolly  IIoss'  ?  and  leaving  it  to  be  in- 
ferred, by  G — d,  sir,  that  Col.  Freemont  was  a  sort  of 
silent  partner  of  his,  and  had  some  interest  in  the  pro- 
ceeds of  his  d d  exhibition?  ~No,  by  G — d,  sir,  if 

it  had  taken  a  hundred  days  instead  of  fourteen,  Mr. 
Young,  I  would  have  freely  given  it  to  expose  this 
vile  showman  and  disconnect  the  name  of  my  son-in- 
law  with  this  vile  showman  and  his  d d  '•Woolly 

Hoss?  by  G— d,  sir!  " 

I  have  very  little  more  to  say  of  my  old  friend 
Timothy  R.  Young.  I  had  some  hesitation  about  in- 
troducing his  name  into  these  memoirs,  for  the  reason 
that  he  is  certainly  not  a  great  man,  and  equally  cer- 
tain it  is  that  he  is  not  a  little  man.  Though  he  did 
not  figure  in  Congress  as  a  speaker,  yet  by  his  social 
qualities  and  private  intercourse  with  the  members, 
bein^  beloved  by  all  who  knew  him,  and  making  sun- 

Ot/  O 

shine  wherever  he  went,  he  was  enabled  to  wield  a  vast 
influence,  which  he  turned  to  good  account  for  the 
constituents  of  his  Congressional  district. 

I  have  only  this  apology  to  offer  for  introducing  the 
names  of  men  of  mediocrity,  that  there  must  be  a  foil 
or  shade  to  every  picture,  and  it  is  impossible  for  me 
to  have  none  but  great  and  heroic  characters,  and  my 
readers  must  not  expect  that  amongst  my  numerous 
acquaintances  I  shall  introduce  none  but  a  Lincoln, 
Douglas,  Ford,  Palmer  or  Hardin.  This  world  is 
made  up  of  great  and  small  men  and  men  of  medium 
size,  and  it  often  happens  that  men  who  belong  to 
.the  two  latter  classes  have  been  more  worthy  and 


TIMOTHY  R.  YOUNG. 


195 


done  more  valuable  service  for  their  country  and 
friends  than  the  shining  lights  of  talent  and .  of 
genius. 

My  friend  Tim  Young,  I  am  happy  to  say,  is  in  the 
most  easy  of  circumstances,  for  besides  a  considerable 
real  estate  which  he  owns  in  Chicago,  he  has  a  fine 
farm  in  Glark  county,  where  he  dispenses  the  hospital- 
ities of  host  to  his  visiting  friends,  and  those  are  to  be 
numbered  by  hundreds. 


196  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


EJKBY  BENEDICT. 


10RTHY  reader,  I  will  liere  introduce  to  your 
acquaintance  an  old  and  cherished  friend  of 
mine,  with  whom  I  became  acquainted  Jong 
years  ago.  His  name  is  Kirby  Benedict,  a  lawyer  of 
considerable  talent  and  genius;  and  for  oratorical 
power,  I  think  he  was  equal  to  any  of  the  best  speak- 
ers I  know  of  in  the  west.  In  that  particular  he  had 
great  versatility  of  talent.  Now  he  would  convulse 
his  hearers  with  laughter,  and  in  the  next  breath  melt 
them  into  tears. 

He  used  to  practice  on  Lincoln's  and  my  old  circuit, 
before  Judge  David  Davis,  and  also  before  Judge 
Harlan.  His  voice  was  like  a  bugle  note,  and  full  of 
musical  sweetness.  He  was  a  man  above  the  medium 
size,  of  fine  personal  appearance,  of  good  address,  but 
somewhat  pompous  in  his  manners,  but  not  offensively 
so.  Kirby  was  quite  vain,  fond  of  popular  applause, 
and  very  sensitive  if  he  thought  himself  to  be  the  sub- 
ject of  either  censure  or  ridicule.  If  his  opponent  at 
the  bar  got  the  advantage  of  him  by  setting  a  trap 
for  him  to  fall  into,  he  would  be  mortified  to  death, 
almost,  when  he  found  it  out.  I  will  give  a  circum- 
stance here  which  occurred  between  Kirby,  Anthony 
Thornton,  late  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court,  and 


KIRBY  BENEDICT.  197 

myself.  It  happened  while  we  were  attending  the 
Mo  ul  trie  County  Circuit  Court. 

Thornton  and  myself  were  defending  a  man  charged 
with  hog-stealing,  and  the  State's  Attorney  employed 
Kirby  Benedict  to  assist  him  in  the  prosecution. 
There  was  a  vast  crowd  in  attendance,  the  trial  excit- 
ing a  great  deal  of  interest,  the  prosecutors  of  the 
accused  being  his  sister  and  her  husband,  who  swore 
against  him  with  a  vengeance.  When  the  evidence 
was  through,  our  client  leaned  over  aud  whispered  to 
Thornton  and  myself  and  asked  us  what  we  thought 
of  his  chances.  Thornton  told  him  that  he  did  not 
think  they  had  make  out  any  case  against  him;  but  I 
differed  with  Thornton,  and  told  our  client  that  the 
chances  for  his  acquittal  were  very  slim.  1  shall  never 
forget  the  look  he  gave  us  when  he  said.  "Boys,  shall 
I  take  to  the  brush?" 

"  Oh  no,"  said  I,  in  an  ironical  tone, "  I  should  be  very 
loath  to  give  you  such  advice  as  that;  but  this  is  a  very 
warm  day,  and  you  must  be  thirsty,  and  the  water  here 
is  about  as  bad  as  any  I  ever  drank."  Turning  to 
Thornton  I  said,  in  a  low  tone,  "  Anthony,  don't  you 
think  the  water  in  Kentucky  a  great  deal  better  than 
here?" 

"  Oh  yes."  said  he,  u  much  better." 

Our  client  was  not  slow  to  take  the  hint. 

Said  I  to  him :  "  If  you  are  dry,  go  and  get  a  drink; 
your  presence  is  not  particularly  needed  here  during 
the  argument,  and  we  will  make  that  consume  the  rest 
of  this  day." 

He  quietly  slipped  out  of  the  court  house,  and  I 
have  never  seen  him  from  that  day  to  this.  I  arranged 


198  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

with  Thornton  a  plan  of  operations  to  make  the  argn- 
ments  consume  the  rest  of  the  day,  so  that  our  client 
might  get  away  as  far  as  possible  before  he  was  missed. 
The  trap  set  was  this:  after  the  prosecuting  attorney 
had  made  the  opening  speech,  Thornton  was  to  follow 
in  a  long  'speech,  in  which  he  was  to  pour  out  ven- 
geance on  the  prosecuting  witnesses,  and  touch  up  Ben- 
edict by  way  of  anticipation.  I  was  to  wind  up  the 
argument  on  [our  side  in  a  similar  style.  Thornton 
consumed  about  one  hour  and  a  half.  I  determined  to 
consume  about  twice  that  length  of  time  if  I  could 
do  so.  When  it  came  my  time  to  speak  I  was  put  to 
the  very  end  of  my  wits  to  know  how  I  should  make 
a  three  hours'  speech  upon  evidence  which  was  short, 
plain  and  to  the  point;  but  I  was  enabled  to  do  so.  I 
consequently  put  on  a  bold  look  and  manufactured  the 
principal  part  of  my  speech  in  anticipating  Benedict. 
I  made  all  sorts  of  ludicrous  comparisons  in  reference 
to  him.  Said  I:  .  "Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  he  thinks 
himself  a  great  man,  but  you  and  I  know  that  he  is 
not;  but  that  he  is  a  living  and  moving  mass  of  van- 
ity and  egotism.  And  what  claim,  gentlemen  of  the 
jury,  has  he  to  enroll  his  name  with  respectable  law- 
yers, when  he  has  come  here  and  for  the  small  sum  of 
five  dollars  has  hired  himself  to  these  wicked  and  dia- 
bolical witnesses  to  assist  them  in  the  prosecution  of 
their  brother?"  and  I  went  on  in  this  strain  as  long  as 
I  could  have  any  decent  excuse  for  doing  so. 

Benedict  fairly  snorted  through  the  court  house.  O, 
but  he  was  anxious  to  get  at  me!  And  what  gave  him 
greater  offense  than  all,  was  that  every  now  and  then 
I  would  stop  and  burst  out  into  a  great  horse  laugh, 


KIRBY  BENEDICT.  199 

when  no  man  of  sense  could  see  any  cause  for  it;  but 
as  laughing  is  contagious,  the  jury  and  the  crowd  joined 
me  in  my  merriment,  but  Benedict  did  not  participate. 
lie  strode  across  the  floor,  and  the  spirit  of  ten  thou- 
sand storms  had  painted  itself  upon  his  face.  About 
this  time  some  of  the  crowd  had  discovered  that  the 
defendant  had  sloped,  and  they  tried  to  make  Benedict 
acquainted  with  the  fact,  but  he  wraived  them  off  and 
would  not  listen  to  them,  being  intent  on  the  castiga- 
tion  he  was  going  to  administer  to  me.  He  was  like 
a  volcano  on  the  eve  of  an  eruption.  He  commenced 
his  speech  when  the  sun  was  about  two  hours  high,  and 
O,  didn't  I  catch  it!  But. I  was  content,  knowing  that 
^Benedict  had  fallen  into  my  trap.  About  this  t!me  a 
large  portion  of  the  crowd  had  begun  to  see  what  was 
in  the  wind,  and  as  I  came  outside  of  the  bar  I  met 
Major  Poor  in  a  perfect  fury.  Said  he  to  me:  "Lin- 
der,  your  client  has  '  cut  sticks,'  and  I  am  inclined  to 
think  you  advised  it." 

"  O,  no,  no,  Major,"  said  I,  "  I  hope  you  don't  enter- 
tain such  an  opinion  of  me.  I  didn't  advise  him  to 
run  away.  During  the  trial  he  asked  me  if  he  should 
take  to  the  brush,  and  I  told  him  no;  "but,"  said  I  to 
him,  "  as  the  day  is  hot,  and  you  are  perhaps  thirsty, 
and  being  out  on  bail,  you  have  a  right  to  go  and  get 
a  drink  of  water,"  and  that  was  all  I^said  to  him;  but 
I  asked  Mr.  Thornton  in  his  presence,  Major,  if  he  did 
not  think  the  water  in  Kentucky  was  much  better  than 
in  Illinois,  and  he  said  it  certainly  was."  "Now,"' 
said  I,  "  Major,  if  my  client  should  have  taken  this  as 
a  hint  to  leave  and  jump  his  bail,  I  shall  feel  exceed- 
ingly sorrowful!" 


200  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

"  O  the  devil  take  you  and  your  sorrow,"  and  we 
both  burst  out  into  a  hearty  laugh. 

That  evening  I  settled  my  hotel  bill  and  mounted 
my  horse  and  started  home.  This  was  just  about 
dusk.  As  I  passed  by  the  court  house  I  heard  Bene- 
dict's sonorous  voice  pouring  out  wrath  upon  my  head. 
I  went  home  and  did  not  return  to  the  next  term  of 
court  at  Moultrie.  I  learned  from  the  sheriff  that  the 
jury  had  returned  a  verdict  of  guilty  against  my  cli- 
ent. "  Well,"  said  I,  "  sheriff,  what  did  you  do  with 
him?" 

"  What  did  1  do  with  him?"  said  he,  "what  could  I 
do  with  him?  He  had  sloped  before  the  verdict  was 
rendered,  and  the  court  issued  its  writ  directed  to  me, 
commanding  me  to  take  the  body  of  the  defendant  if 
found  within  my  county,  and  to  bring  him  into  court 
at  the  next  term  thereof  to  hear  the  verdict  of  the  jury 
and  receive  the  sentence  of  the  court." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  why  don't  you  take  him  ?  " 

"For  a  very  good  reason."  said  he;  "he  never 
comes  into  Moultrie  county,  but  he  stands  on  the  other 
side  of  the  line  dividing  Moultrie  from  Coles,  and  will 
jaw- me  for  an  hour  at  a  time;  and  now,"  says  he, 
"  Linder,  I  want  }TOU  to  tell  me  what  I  shall  do  in  this 
case." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  sheriff,  if  ever  you  can  lay  your 
hands  on  him  in  Moultrie  county,  do  you  put  him  in 
jail;  but  I  don't  think  the  writ  you  have  gives  you 
any  authority  to  cross  the  line  into  Coles  and  arrest 
him  there/' 

When  Benedict  learned  the  trick  that  had  been 
played  upon  him,  he  was  exceedingly  mortified  for 


KIRBY  BENEDICT.  201 

awhile,  as  1  learned,  but  finally  laughed  it  off,  and  said 
he  had  gained  the  victory,  but  that  we  had  cheated 
him  out  of  the  fruits  ot  it. 

When  I  first  knew  Kirby  Benedict  he  lived  in  the 
town  of  Decatur,  111.,  which  was  on  Lincoln's  Circuit, 
he  and  Lincoln  being  great  friends  and  cronies,  and  I 
know  from  Lincoln's  own  lips  that  he  enjoyed  Bene- 
dict's society  hugely.  The  truth  is,  all  the  lawyers 
liked  Benedict.  Judge  Davis  I  know  was  extremely 
fond  of  him. 

There  was  a  lawyer  who  practiced  on  Judge  Davis' 
circuit  by  the  name  of  David  Campbell.  He  and 
Benedict  were  in  the  habit  of  playing  their  tricks  on 
each  other.  The  hotels  in  those  days  I  remember 
being  scarce  of  beds,  used  frequently  to  put  two  of  us 
lawyers  in  one  bed ;  and  it  frequently  fell  to  the  lot  of 
Campbell  and  Benedict  to  occupy  one  bed  between 
them.  One  day  I  heard  Campbell  say  to  Benedict, 
with  a  smirk  on  his  face:  "Benedict,  you  must  get 
the  landlord  to  furnish  you  a  bed  to  yourself." 

"  Well,  suppose  he  hasn't  got  one? "  said  Benedict. 

"  Then  you  must  sleep  on  the  floor,  or  get  the  land- 
lord to  furnish  you  a  bsrth  up  in  his  hay-mow." 

"  What  is  your  objection  to  sleeping  with  me,  Gen- 
eral David  Campbell?"  said  Benedict. 

"  D —  you,"  said  Campbell,  "  I  never  did  sleep 
with  you,  but  have  lain  with  you.  To  sleep  with  you 
would  be  impossible.  You  snore  like  a  Cyclops,  and 
your  breath  smells  so  of  mean  whisky  that  1  would 
as  soon  breathe  the  air  of  a  charnel  house  and  live  in 
reach  of  its  eternal  stench." 
'  "  Well,"  said  Benedict,  "  General  Campbell,  I  will 


202  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

show  you  that  you  shall  sleep  with  me,  and  if  either 
of  us  has  to  sleep  on  the  floor  or  go  to  the  hay-mow, 
it  will  be  you,  d —  you,  and  not  me." 

"  Well,  well,"  said  Campbell,  with  a  sinister  smile 
on  his  face,  "  we  will  see  about  it." 

So  that  night  Dave  Campbell  went  to  bed  earlier 
than  usual,  and  at  about  twelve  o'clock  at  night  along 
comes  Benedict,  pretty  much  "  how-come-you-so." 
Addressing  himself  to  Campbell,  who  feigned  to  be 
half-asleep,  he  said:  "Hullo  there!  Dave,  lay  over 
to  the  back  of  the  bed  and  give  me  room  in  front.'' 

Before  going  to  bed  that  evening  Dave  had  armed 
his  heel  by  buckling  on  it  one  of  his  spurs.  When 
Benedict  got  undressed,  even  to  the  taking  off  of  his 
drawers,  he  jumped  into  bed  and  began  to  fondle  on 
Campbell.  Dave  quietly  drew  up  the  heel  that  had  the 
spur  on  and  planted  it  about  six  inches  above  Bene- 
dict's knee  and  gave  it  a  turn  down  wards,  crying  u  Get 
up  there!  Get  up  there!"  as  though  he  was  speaking 
to  his  horse.  Benedict  gave  a  sudden  leap  and  landed 
about  the  middle  of  the  floor,  crying  out  in  great 
agony:  "Jesus!  the  d — d  fellow  has  got  the  night- 
mare or  delirium  tretnens,  and  has  taken  me  for  his 
d — d  old  horse." 

Judge  Davis  and  Lincoln,  who  were  sleeping  in  the 
same  room,  could  stand  this  no  longer.  They  burst 
out  into  the  most  uproarious  laughter. 

Benedict  was  a  hard  man  to  beat  before  a  jury,  but 
if  you  could  pierce  him  with  the  keen  shaft  of  ridicule, 
he  was  not  so  hard  to  beat,  for  he  was  apt  to  get  irri- 
tated and  say  something  that  would  make  him  assail- 
able, and  give  the  advantage  to  his  opponent 


KIEBY  BENEDICT.  203 

Benedict  has  for  a  long  time  been  out  of  the  States, 
having  been  sent  as  United  States'  Judge  to  ~New 
Mexico  during  the  administration  of  President  Pierce, 
where  he  has  been  ever  since.  .  He  was  the  Chief  Jus- 
tice of  that  territory  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  to 
the  Presidency,  and  though  he  was  strongly  besieged 
by  political  aspirants  to  remove  Benedict  and  appoint 
a  man  of  his  own  party  to  fill  the  place,  Mr.  Lincoln 
positively  refused  to  do  so;  and  when  asked  for  his 
reasons,  told  them  that  he  had  enjoyed  too  many 
happy  hours  in  his  society,  and  he  was  too  good  and 
glorious  a  fellow  for  him  to  lay  violent  hands  upon; 
that  he  could  not  find  it  in  his  heart  to  do  so,  and  he 
wouldn't;  nor  did  he.  I  have  no  farther  reminiscences 
I  can  call  to  mind  now  of  friend  Benedict,  but  I  desire 
to  bear  testimony  to  his  shining  genius  and  talent, 
and  his  eminent  social  qualities. 


204  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


ALEXANDER  P.  FIELD. 


jHERE  is  a  man  that  I  cannot  overlook, 
because  he  has  occupied  too  prominent  a 
place  in  the  public  inind  of  Illinois  for  nearly 
fifty  years,  and  I  must  give  him  a  place  in  these 
memoirs.  It  is  Alexander  P.  Field,  who  was  Secre- 
tary of  State  under  Governor  Duncan  when  I  came 
to  Illinois  in  1835.  He  was  decidedly  the  most  prom- 
inent lawyer  in  the  State  at  that  time,  especially  as  a 
criminal  lawyer.  He  was  sent  for  everywhere  in  the 
State  by  persons  charged  with  murder,  and  other  high 
offenses,  and  was  very  successful.  He  was  a  man  of 
fine  personal  appearance — about  six  feet  four  inches 
high,  with  long  arms,  and  possessed  of  very  graceful 
gestures;  a  fine  voice,  that  he  could  modulate  almost 
at  will,  and  his  power  and  influence  over  juries  were 
almost  unlimited.  I  have  already  alluded,  in  my 
sketch  of  Gen.  John  A.  McClernand,  of  his  and  Field's 
contest  for  the  Secretary  of  Stateship,  before  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  in  which  Field, 
was  successful  and  kept  the  office.  The  opinion  of 
the  court,  delivered  by  Chief  Justice  Wilson,  can  be 
found  in  the  first  or  second  of  Scammon's  Reports, 
which  is  very  long  and  able,  but  was  not  considered 
as  authority  in  after  years,  when  five  democratic  judges 


ALEXANDER  P.  FIELD. 

were  added  to  the  number  of  the  four  old  judges,  and 
a  Democratic  Secretary  of  State  was  appointed.  Field, 
knowing  that  the  court  as  then  constituted  would 
reverse  the  decision  of  the  old  court,  declined  to  con- 
test the  appointment  and  retired  from  the  office. 

Field  was  not  only  a  great  criminal  lawyer,  but  he 
was  great  in  all  that  class  of  cases  which  sounded  in 
damages — such  as  slander,  seduction,  and  breach  of 
marriage  promise,  etc.  He  obtained  some  of  the 
largest  verdicts  of  any  lawyer  in  the  State.  He  was 
not  only  great  before  courts  and  juries,  but  he  was 
great  as  a  political  speaker,  and  he  could  madden  or 
convulse  his  audience  with  laughter,  at  pleasure.  In 
1836  and  '37,  when  we  embarked  in,  as  was  then 
thought,  our  wild  scheme  of  Internal  Improvements,' 
Field  frequently  addressed  the  lobby,  he  believing  the 
scheme  to  be  Utopian  and  impracticable.  He  ridiculed 
the  idea  of  constructing  a  railroad  like  the  Central, 
from  Chicago  to  Cairo.  First,  we  could  not  get  the 
money  to  build  it;  and  second,  if  we  could,  and  the 
railroad  should  actually  be  built,  the  trade  and  travel 
between  those  points  would  never  be  sufficient  so  sup- 
port it.  u  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  let  me  imagine  I 
see  one  of  our  plain  Illinois  suckers  standing  near 
the  road  as  a  train  of  cars  comes  dashing  up  from 
Cairo  to  Chicago;  the  sucker  exclaims,  'Railroad, 
ahoy!'  The  conductor  checks  up  his  cars,  when  the 
sucker  continues,  '  where  are  you  from  and  where  are 
you  bound?'  The  conductor  answers  in  a  fine  and 
feeble  voice,  '  From  Kiro  to  Chicago.'  '  What  are 
you  loaded  with?'  says  the  sucker.  The  conductor 
answers,  '  With  hoop-poles  and  bull-frogs.' " 


206  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

Field  believed  that  there  was  not  money  enough  in 
the  whole  world  to  build  the  roads  that  we  had  mapped 
out  in  our  scheme;  but  he  has  lived  to  see  his  egregious 
error,  for  the  money  has  been  furnished  to  build  twice 
as  many  miles  of  rail  road  as  we  mapped  out  in  our 
scheme  of  internal  improvements  for  ths  State  of 
Illinois  alone. 

A.  P.  Field  removed  from  this  State  to  New  Orleans 
about  twenty  or  twenty-five  years  ago,  and  has  become 
a  man  of  mark  and  placed  himself  at  the  very  head  of 
the  Louisiana  bar.  Field  was  a  fearful  and  terrible 
opponent  in  a  political  campaign.  He  was  withering 
in  sarcasm  and  repartee.  I  recollect  to  have  heard 
him  on  one  occasion  on  the  stump,  when  replying  to 
a  political  opponent  whom  Field  charged  with  having 
finally  got  on  the  side  opposed  to  himself  (Field)  after 
changing  his  politics  once  or  twice.  "  Gentlemen," 
said  Field,  "I  don't  know  where  to  find  him.  He 
reminds  me  of  the  negro  in  Kentucky  whom  his  mas- 
ter had  set  to  listing  off  the  field  into  furrows  for  the 

o 

purpose  of  planting  corn,  who  coming  up  and  looking 
at  the  darkey's  work,  said  to  him:  '  Ned,  your  furrows 
are  not  straight;  you  should  stand  about  four  feet  from 
your  last  furrow  and  take  an  object  upon  the  opposite 
side  of  the  field  and  drive  straight  towards  it.  Now 
put  your  plow  in  here,  which  is  about  four  feet  from 
your  last  furrow,  and  drive  for  that  cow  which  is  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  field,  and  make  straight  for 
her  tail,  and  you  will  come  out  right.'  His  master 
went  away,  and  in  about  an  hour  came  back  to  see  how 
Ned  had  obeyed  his  instructions.  He  went  to  where 
he  had  started  Ned,  and  looked  along  down  his  furrow, 


ALEXANDER  P.- FIELD.  207 

but  didn't  see  anything  of  Ned;  but  on  casting  his 
eye  off  obliquely  to  the  right,  he  saw  Ned  close  to  the 
cow,  and  made  for  him,  following  the  furrow  around 
until  lie  got  to  him,  which  took  him  in  a  very  circuit- 
ous route.  Being  in  a  great  passion,  he  said  to  Ned, 
'Didn't  I  set  you  to  plow  straight  furrows?'  'Yes, 
massa,'  said  he,  '  but  you  told  me  to  make  straight  for 

dat  cow's  tail,  and  I  have  followed  the  d d  hussey 

wherever  she  has  gone,  and  if  de  furrows  ain't  straight 
enough  to  please  you,  I  am  berry  sorry  for  it.'  Now, 
gentlemen,"  said  Field,  "  the  gentleman  who  has  pre- 
ceded me  has  followed  his  '•loco  foco"1  cow  wherever 
she  went,  and  behold  what  a  political  furrow  he  has 
made!" 

This  produced  a  tremendous  effect  upon  the  crowd. 

Field  was  not  only  a  splendid  orator,  political  deba- 
ter, advocate  and  lawyer,  but  he  could  sing  a  good  song 
and  tell  a  good  story.  I  remember  at  the  Carmi  Cir- 
cuit Court  he  perfectly  thrilled  and  electrified  me  by 
singing  that  beautiful  song  to  be  found  in  Moore's 
Melodies,  commencing  thus: 

"So  slow  our  ship  her  foaming  track 

Against  the  wind  was  cleaving, 
Her  trembling  pennant  still  looked  back 

To  that  dear  isle  'twas  leaving." 

My  readers  doubtless  remember  the  balance  of  this 
beautiful  song,  and  suffer  me  to  say  that  it  lost  none  of 
its  beauties  from  the  style,  manner  and  voice  in  which 
Field  sung  it.  It  was  upon  this  occasion,  Jeff 
Gatewood,  of  Shawneetown,  being  present,  that  Field 
related  the  rencounter  between  Judge  Jephtha  Hardin 
and  Jeff,  in  which  Jeff  used  the  words  "  little  court," 


208  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

which  I  have  already  related  in  the  sketch  I  have  given 
of  Judge  Ilardin. 

I  have  only  to  state  that  Field  was  elected  one  of  the 
members  to  the  House  of  Representatives  in  Congress 
from  the  State  of  Louisiana  after  the  close  of  our  civil 
war,  but  as  the  reader  will  remember,  they  were  not 
permitted  to  take  their  seats.  I  will  state  here  that 
Field  was  descended  from  one  of  the  most  talented 
families  in  Kentucky,  on  his  mother's  side  of  the  house. 
She  was  a  Pope,  and  the  sister  of  Governor  John  Pope 
of  Arkansas,  and  of  our  own  Judge  Nathaniel  Pope, 
of  this  State,  both  natives  of  Kentucky.  I  was  person- 
ally acquainted  with  both  these  men. 

I  fear  that  I  have  not  done  full  justice  to  Mr.  Field. 
If  so,  I  shall  be  sorry  for  it,  and  can  only  say  if  I  have 
left  out  anything,  it  is  the  result  of  the  failing  memory 
of  an  old  man. 


ANTHONY  THOKNTON.  209 


ANTHONY  THOENTOK 


JWILL  take  the  liberty  of  introducing  at  this 
place  a  man  who  is  still  living  and  well  known 
to  the  public,  especially  to  the  legal  fraternity, 
His  Honor  Judge  Anthony  Thornton,  of  Shelbyville, 
111.  His  first  wife  was  Mildred  Thornton,  the  daughter 
of  the  late  William  F.  Thornton  of  Shelbvville.  An- 
thony himself  was  either  her  second  or  third  cousin. 
Anthony  Thornton  is  a  native  of  Kentucky,  and  hails 
from  somewhere  near  the  Blue  Grass  region  thereof — 
I  think  from  Paris  or  Cynthiana. 

My  acquaintance  with  Judge  Thornton  commenced 
when  he  was  quite  a  young  man,  and  must  have  been 
somewhere  in  1839  or  '40.  He  was  attending  the 
Coles  county  Circuit  Court  at  Charleston,  my  then  place 
of  residence;  and  that  was  the  first  time  I  saw  his 
Honor,  the  late  Charles  Constable.  I  was  introduced 
to  them  both  at  the  same  time,  and  thought  then,  and 
I  still  think,  that  they  were  two  of  the  finest,  most 
imposing  and  handsome  men  that  my  eyes  ever  looked 
upon.  They  were  both  over  six  feet  in  height,  well 
shaped  and  symmetrical  in  form,  and  it  would  have 
troubled  the  most  tasteful  young  lady  to  have  given 
preference  to  either  of  them.  They  had  both  but 
recently  been  admitted  to  the  bar.  Thornton  was  well 


210  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

educated,  and  graduated  at  the  Transylvania  Univer- 
sity of  Kentucky.  My  acquaintance  with  him  from 
that  time  up  to  1860,  when  I  removed  to  Chicago,  has 
been  close  and  intimate.  We  were  often  associated 
together  in  important  causes;  at  least  three  cases  of 
murder,  many  of  slander,  and  a  large  number  of  other 
cases,  both  at  law  and  in  equity.  He  was  a  pleasant 
man  to  get  along  with  if  you  took  care  to  keep  him 
in  a  good  humor.  He  was  a  sound  lawyer;  prepared 
his  cases  well,  and  but  seldom,  if  ever,  came  into  court 
unprepared.  As  a  man  of  honesty  and  honor,  there 
is  none  to-day  who  stands  higher  with  those  who  know 
him  than  does  Judge  Anthony  Thornton  with  all 
those  who  have  the  honor  of  his  acquaintance.  An- 
thony had  however  his  deficiencies,  as  I  have  been 
told,  one  of  which  was  he  had  no  ear  for  music;  could 
not  distinguish  one  tune  from  another,  and  could  not 
tell  when  the  fiddler  was  playing  a  tune  or  only  tuning 
his  fiddle;  and  on  one  occasion,  having  led  out  his 
partner  to  the  head  of  a  set  of  dancers,  he  actually 
commenced  dancing  when  the  fiddler  was  only  tuning 
his  instrument.  Ah,  Anthony!  Anthony!  this  sad 
mishap  of  yours  put  you  in  a  long  state  of  quarantine, 
but  you  finally  triumphed,  as  you  richly  deserved  to  do. 
I  served  several  sessions  in  the  lower  House  of  our 
State  Legislature,  he  being  the  member  from  Shelby 
and  I  the  member  from  Coles.  It  was  between  1846 
.and  1850.  It  was  during  the  time  when  we  were 
struggling  for  our  Terre  Haute  and  Alton  railroad, 
which  ran  from  Terre  Haute  through  Edgar,  Coles, 
Shelby,  Montgomery,  Macoupin  and  Madison  coun- 
ties, terminating  at  Alton.  Thornton  and  I  had  the 


ANTHONY  THORNTON.  211 

same  interest,  and  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  for  this 
road,  and  to  prevent  a  rival  road  from  Terre  Haute 
straight  to  St.  Louis,  which  would  have  effectually 
killed  ours.  This  is  the  same  matter  I  have  heretofore 
related  in  the  sketch  I  have  given  of  my  old  friend 
Gillespie,  and  should  not  have  introduced  it  here, 
except  to  show  the  part  taken  therein  by  Mr.  Thorn- 
ton. No  man  gave  to  it  a  more  effectual  support 
than  he. 

Some  years  elapsed  after  he  reached  the  legislature 
before  he  was  elected  to  Congress  from  the  Sangamon 
district  —  Lincoln  and  Yates'  old  district.  I  think 
however  that  he  never  served  but  one  term  in  Con- 
gress. I  have  nothing  to  relate  as  to  the  part  he  took 
while  a  member  of  Congress. 

He  was  an  old  line  Whig,  and  was  a  delegate  to  the 
Constitutional  Convention  of  1848  that  formed  our 
Constitution  of  that  date.  He  was  one  of  Henry  Clay's 
greatest  admirers,  and  a1  most  worshiped  him;  and 
could  not  tolerate  any  man  who  attempted  to  disparage 
Mr.  Clay.  In  this  Constitutional  Convention  there 
was  a  delegate  from  Edgar  county,  a  Baptist  preacher 
of  the  old  hard-shell  order — a  pretty  talented  man, 
whose  name  I  will  not  mention  here.  He  was  no  great 
friend  to  Mr.  Clay,  being  of  a  different  school  of  poli- 
ticians. He  and  Thornton  both  boarded  at  Chenery's 
hotel.  One  day  while  sitting  at  dinner  together  writh 
a  great  man}7  other  delegates,  a  discussion  arose  between 
Thornton  and  this  preacher  delegate,  in  which  the  lat- 
ter claimed  that  John  C.  Calhoun,  of  South  Carolina, 
was  greatly  Mr.  Clay's  superior  in  talent,  eloquence 
and  statesmanship,  but  wound  up  by  saying  in  rather 


212  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES.* 

a  depreciating  tone  of  voice,  "Yet  I  will  admit,  Mr. 
Thornton,  that  your  friend  Mr.  Clay  is  a  very  smart 
man." 

Thornton  in  a  towering  fit  of  passion,  jumped  to 
his  feet  and  said  to  the  preacher:  "Do  yon  apply  the 
mean,  Yankee,  horse-jockey  word  'smart9  to  such  a 
man  as  Henrj'  Clay?  If  you  ever  do  it  again  in  my 
presence  I'll  thrash  you,  d — n  you,  as  long  as  I  can 
feel  you." 

Judge  Harlan,  who  was  also  a  member  of  this  Con- 
vention, and  present  on  this  occasion,  gave  me  a  graphic 
description  of  it,  and  he  said  that  Thornton's  construc- 
tion of  the  word  "  smart "  produced  a  universal  burst 
and  roar  of  laughter,  and  they  kept  it  up  till  Thorn- 
ton and  the  preacher  had  to  join  therein,  and  the  mat- 
ter was  not  attended  with  any  serious  consequences. 

I  will  relate  a  matter  here  with  which  friend  An- 
thony is  connected,  which  would  perhaps  have  found 
its  place  more  properly  in  the  sketch  I  have  given  of 
Gen.  Wm.  F.  Thornton,  his  father-in-law.  At  a  term 
of  the  Shelby  Circuit  Court,  which  was  being  held 
either  by  Koerner  or  Judge  Treat,  a  good  many  law- 
vers  from  other  counties  were  in  attendance — among1 

•i  O 

the  rest  David  Davis,  now  Supreme  Judge  of  the 
United  States  Court,  O.  B.  Ficklin,  myself,  and  a  good 
many  others.  General  Thornton  had  procured  the  in- 
dictment of  a  fellow  who  had  stolen  a  bridle  and  a 
pair  of  martingals  from  his  store.  The  fellow  being 
tolerable  cunning,  got  his  friends  to  employ  Anthony 
Thornton,  the  General's  son-in-law,  to  defend  him; 
and  not  being  very  vigorously  prosecuted,  of  course  he 
was  acquitted.  I  was  not  in  the  court  house  when  the 


ANTHONY  THORNTON.  213 

jury  rendered  their  verdict  of  not  guilty;  but  after  it 
was  over  Anthony  came  to  me  at  my  hotel  and  said : 
"  The  General  is  in  a  perfect  fury,  and  he  expected 
you  or  Ficklin  to  have  prosecuted,  and  I  am  sorry  you 
did  n't,"  said  he:  "  And  so  am  I,"  said  I;  and  in  a  few 
minutes  afterwards  General  Thornton  made  his  ap- 
pearance in  the  room  where  the  Judge  and  all  us  law- 
yers were  assembled.  We  all  knew  what  was  coining, 
He  swore  that  the  law,  in  the  way  that  it  was  adminis- 
tered, was  a  mere  farce;  that  the  d d  rascal  who 

had  been  acquitted  was  guilty,  as  everybody  knew;  and 
went  on  with  a  terrible  tirade  against  law  and  lawyers 
in  Illinois;  and  when  he  had  pretty  well  exhausted 
himself,  Judge  David  Davis,  who  was  then  nothing 
but  lawyer  Davis,  in  a  very  quiet  and  soothing  way, 
said  to  General  Thornton:  "General,  you  know  it  is 
an  old  and  humane  maxim  of  the  common  law  that  it 
is  better  that  ninety-nine  guilty  men  should  escape, 
than  that  one  innocent  man  should  be  convicted." 

"  No,  sir"  said  General  Thornton ;  "  by  G — d,  sir, 
the  maxim  is  false,  sir!  I  say,  sir,  that  it  is  better 
that  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  innocent  should 
suffer,  than  that  one  G — d  d d  rascal,  like  the  fel- 
low who  stole  my  bridle  and  martingals  should  go 
unwhipped  of  justice." 

Now  it  may  seem  strange  to  the  reader  that  a  man 
of  General  Thornton's  intelligence  should  have  given 
utterance  to  an  expression  so  absurd  as  this,  yet  it 
must  be  remembered  that  he  was  in  a  terrible  passion; 
but  it  was  impossible  for  us  to  repress  our  merriment, 
and  we  all  laughed  to  the  very  splitting  of  our  sides. 

In  every  position  in  which  friend  Anthony  has  been 


214  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

placed,  he  has  filled  it  with  distinguished  honor  to  him- 
self and  benefit  to  the  country.  I  have  not  lost  sight 
of  my  distinguished  frieifd  since  I  moved  away  from 
that  part  of  the  country,  and  am  aware,  as  my  readers 
know,  that  he  was  elected  as  one  of  the  members  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  which  ofiice  he  filled 
with  distinguished  honor,  and  has  delivered  some  of 
the  opinions  of  the  court  which  will  hand  his  name 
down  to  the  latest  posterity,  especially  one  in  reference 
to  the  rights  of  husband  and  wife  under  our  recent 
statutes. 

I  know  that  he  "was  veiy  popular  with  his  brother 
judges,  especially  with  Judge  McAllister;  but  to  the 
astonishment  of  his  friends  and  the  public,  he  resigned 
and  retired  to  private  life.  He  had  a  handsome  for-, 
tune  to  fall  back  upon,  and  the  truth  is,  that  no  man 
of  his  talents,  who  has  a  good  practice  as  a  lawyer  as 
he  had,  can  abandon  it  and  forsake  the  pleasant  walks 
of  private  and  professional  life  for  the  insignificant 
compensation  given  to  our  Supreme  Judges. 

I  have  given  to  friend  Anthony  such  a  notice  as  I 
think  he  is  entitled  to,  and  if  I  have  fallen  short  of 
doing  him  justice,  it  is  not  willful,  but  the  failure  of 
memory.  I  wish  to  state  in  conclusion,  that  my  recol- 
lections of  him  are  of  the  kindliest  character,  which 
I  believe  he  knows  and  fully  appreciates. 


NATHANIEL  POPE.  215 


POPE. 


|  HE  next  name  which  I  propose  to  introduce 
into  these  memoirs  is  that  of  Nathaniel  Pope, 
late  judge  of  the  United  States  District  Court 
of  Illinois.  He  has  alre'ady  been  referred  to  in  my 
sketches  of  other  persons.  He  was  a  man  of  great 
legal  attainments,  and  as  I  am  writing  these  memoirs 
from  memory,  the  readers  must  not  hold  me  to  a  very 
strict  account  as  to  dates.-  My  present  impression  is 
that  Judge  Pope  was  our  first  delegate  in  Congress 
from  Illinois  when  it  was  but  a  territory.  Judge 
Pope  and  myself  were  intimate,  personal  friends.  I 
became  acquainted  with  him  in  1836  and  '37,  and  we 
were  warm  friends  to  the  last  day  of  his  life.  He 
has  gone  to  his  rest. 

I  have  not  much  to  say  of  Judge  Pope,  except  that 
he  was  an  eminent  lawyer  at  Kaskaskia,  when  Thomas 
Benton,  from  Missouri  came  across  the  Mississippi  and 
practiced  in  the  courts  of  Kaskaskia,  and  I  believe 
Pope  at  that  time  practiced  at  St.  Louis,  and  other 
towns  on  the  Mississippi.  He  was  the  uncle  of  A. 
P.  Field,  about  whom  I  have  already  written.  He- 
was  pretty  severe  upon  the  lawyers  who  practiced  in 
his  court,  and  was  not  very  choice  as  to  the  words  he 
used  when  he  saw  fit  to  reprimand  them. 


216  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

Judge  Pope  is  eminently  a  historical  character,  and 
was  the  father  of  General  John  Pope,  who  figured  in 
our  late  civil  war,  and  is  memorable  for  having  dated 
his  military  orders  thus:  "From  head-quarters,  in  the 
saddle;"  and  is  also  memorable  for  having  said  in 
those  orders  that  he  was  accustomed  to  victory,  and 
that  the  term  "retreat"  was  not  to  be  found  in  his 
tactics  or  dictionary.  But  it  is  melancholy  to  relate, 
and  I  am  sorry  to  have  it  to  do,  that  he  had  to  change 
his  tactics  and  revise  his  dictionary  when  that  man 
Stonewall  Jackson  got  after  him,  who  was  a  very  pious 
man,  and  whose  negro  servant  said,  when  asked  about 
the  habits  of  his  master,  "  I  tell  you,  sah,  dat  when 
massa  Jackson  get  up  free  or  foil'  times  in  de  night  to 
pray,  you  might  look  out  for  hell  de  next  day ! " 

Judge  Pope,  the  father  of  General  John  Pope,  sat  on 
the  bench  of  the  United  States  District  Court  of  Illinois 
for  many  years.  I  was  a  young  man  at  the  beginning  of 
my  acquaintance  with  Judge  Pope,  and  a  sort  of  pet 
of  his,  and  he  used  to  scold  me  for  not  coming  to  his 
room  oftener  than  I  did.  He  gave  me  a  sketch  of  the 
characters  of  the  principal  men  in  Congress  when  he 
was  a  delegate,  and  especially  of  Ben  Hard  in,  of  Ken- 
tucky, of  whom  he  did  not  entertain  a  very  good  opin- 
ion, although  he  admitted  that  he  was  a  man  of  con- 
siderable talent,  yet  he  was  coarse  and  ungentlemanly 
in  his  deportment,  and  would  cheat  when  playing  at 
cards  with  gentlemen. 

In  the  contest  which  I  had  with  Stephen  T.  Logan,  to 
which  I  have  heretofore  alluded,  Judge  Pope  was  with 
me  on  the  constitutional  question,  and  furnished  me 
with  very  valuable  thoughts  and  arguments.  Judge 


NATHANIEL  POPE.  217 

Pope's  physical  form  was  not  very  remarkable;  he  was 
rather  above  than  below  the  medium  height,  and  rather 
corpulent;  a  man  could  not  look  upon  him  without 
thinking  that  he  was  a  man  of  considerable  intellectual 
power.  As  I  have  said,  he  was  the  uncle  of  Field, 
and  also  of  Ninian  Edwards. 

I  heard  Stephen  T.  Logan,  whose  opinion  upon  legal 
matters  is  entitled  to  great  respect,  say  that  Judge  Pope 
was  a  man  of  the  finest  legal  mind  he  ever  knew,  and 
this  is  entitled  to  the  more  respect  from  the  fact  that 
Judge  Pope  never  showed  Logan  much  favor  in  his 
court. 

It  would  be  a  source  of  considerable  pleasure  to  me 
if  I  could  give  more  incidents  in  the  life  of  Juge  Pope, 
but  the  reader  must  be  contented  with  what  I  have 
here  written  down. 

I  have  often  partaken  of  the  old  man's  hospitality, 
and  I  desire  to  pay  a  tribute  of  gratitude  and  respect 
to  his  memory  by  saying  that  I  cherish  for  him  the 
kindest  and  most  grateful  remembrance. 


218  LINDEN'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JAMES  SEMPLE. 


|IIE  next  prominent  man  of  my  early  days 
with  whom  I  was  acquainted  was  General 
James  Semple.  I  met  him  in  the  legislature 
of  1836  and  '37.  He  was  one  of  the  members  from 
Madison  county,  Illinois;  at  that  session  he  was 
elected  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  of 
which  he  and  I  were  both  members,  being  both  of  the 
same  political  sentiments;  but  I  did  not  vote  for  him 
for  Speaker,  but  voted  for  my  friend,  Col.  John  De- 
merit, the  son-in-law  of  old  General  Dodge,  of  Wis- 
consin. 

Gen.  Semple  was  one  of  our  self-made  men.  Like 
Lincoln,  Douglas  and  others,  he  rose  into  notice  by 
the  force  of  his  own  intellectual  powers  and  worth, 
without  the  advantages  of  a  liberal  education. 

My  personal  intercourse  with  General  Semple  was 
not  of  the  most  cordial  character.  He  was  inclined  to 
be  an  overbearing  man,  and  was  not  eloquent,  and  was 
envious  of  every  man  who  was  so;  and  when  I  was 
elected  Attorney-General  at  that  session,  he  took  good 
care  not  to  vote  for  me,  and  cast  his  vote  for  John 
Pearsons,  who  was  not  a  candidate  for  the  office,  but  one 
of  my  warmest  and  most  devoted  friends.  Yet  I  do  not 
cherish  unkind  feelings  toward  General  Semple.  "When 


JAMES  SEMPLE.  219 

lie  was  sent  as  Minister  to  Bogota  lie  left  his  law  busi- 
ness in  raj  hands  in  preference  to  all  the  lawyers  in 
Madison  county.  His  family  and  mine  had  the  closest 
social  relations,  and  Mrs.  Semple  I  think  was  one  of 
the  most  agreeable  women  I  ever  knew.  The  General 
has  been  dead  for  a  number  of  years.  Whether  Mrs. 
Semple  is  living  I  know  not. 

General  Semple  was  appointed  by  President  Yan 
Buren  Minister  to  Bogota;  and  in  1843  he  was  ap- 
pointed by  Governor  Ford  as  the  successor  of  Samuel 
McKoberts,  deceased,  in  the  United  States  Senate, 
and  after  serving  for  one  session  as  such  appointee 
the  legislature  in  December,  1844,  confirmed  his  ap- 
pointment by  electing  him  for  the  unexpired  term  of 
his  predecessor.  On  his  return  from  Bogota,  I  being 
a  member  of  the  legislature,  heard  him  deliver  many 
interesting  lectures  in  reference  to  that  country. 

General  Semple  was  a  tanner  by  trade,  and  rose  by 
force  of  his  native  intellect  to  the  high  stations  which 
he  filled.  He  has  not  left  us  any  speech  or  report  which 
would  hand  his  name  down  favorably  to  posterity,  but 
I  feel  myself  charged  to  some  extent  with  that  duty, 
and  trust  that  some  friend  who  has  known  me  will  not 
fail  to  transmit  the  name  of  old  Linder  to  posterity. 


220  LIMBER'S  KEMINISCENCES. 


JOHN  DEMENT. 


]HAVE  a  friend  whom  I  cannot  leave  out  of 
these  memoirs,  though  he  is  not  a  lawyer;  yet 
he  is  better  than  that — he  is  a  brave  and  hon- 
est man.  His  name  is  John  Dement,  and  he  is  still 
living  at  Dixon,  111.  I  first  met  him  at  Yandalia,  at 
the  session  of  1836  and  '37.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
lower  House,  from  Fay ette  county,  Yandalia,  and  I 
took  an  active  part  in  trying  to  elect  him  Speaker  of 
that  body.  I  have  already,  in  another  place,  stated  he 
was  the  son-in-law  of  General  Dodge  (the  old  General 
Dodge).  I  suppose  he  must  be  at  this  time  over  sev- 
enty years  of  age. 

Jack  Dement,  if  I  mistake  not,  was  a  colonel  in  the 
Black  Hawk  war,  and  was  at  Stillman's  defeat,  and 
also  at  the  engagement  known  as  the  battle  of  Kellog's 
Grove.  Stillman's  defeat  was  a  most  disgraceful 
thing,  and  a  dishonor  to  the  arms  of  Illinois.  It  oc- 
curred in  1832,  before  I  came  to  the  State;  I  therefore 
speak  from  information  furnished  by  others.  I  have 
understood  that  Colonel  Dement  did  all  he  possibly 
could  to  rally  his  men  and  make  them  fight;  that  he 
turned  more  than  once  in  his  saddle,  and  fired  his  gun 
at  the  savages,  but  to  rally  his  men  was  utterly  impos- 
sible. They  ran  like  sheep  chased  by  a  gang  of  wolves. 


JOHN  DEMENT.  221 

Colonel  Dement  would  ride  and  get  in  advance  of 
them,  and  waving  his  sword,  would  cry  out,  "  Halt! 
halt !  halt!  "  but  it  was  all  of  no  avail.  On  they  weut? 
until  the  Indians  got  tired  of  chasing  and  scalping 
them.  Some  prisoner  who  escaped  from  the  Indians, 
reported  that  when  they  returned  to  their  camp  they 
were  in  great  glee;  and  flourishing  their  scalps, 
repeated  the  words  of  Colonel  Dement,  "halt!  halt! 
halt!  "  in  a  laughing  and  derisive  manner.  Black 
Hawk,  after  he  was  taken  prisoner  and  carried  around 
through  the  United  States  to  all  our  principal  cities, 
for  the  purpose  of  satisfying  him,  if  there  was  any 
purpose  in  it,  that  a  war  with  us  by  his  naked  and 
half-starved  tribe",  was  a  most  unequal  contest,  is 
reported  to  have  s?i-d  to  one  of  our  interpreters,  that 
Colonel  Jack  Dement  was  the  bravest  man  he  ever 
faced  in  battle;  and  it  affords  me  great  pleasure  to 
indorse  the  opinion  of  this  great  savage. 

Colonel  Dement  was  not  only  brave,  but  in  the  face 
of  clanger  he  was  cool,  cautious  and  prudent.  That  I 
am  a  living  man  to-daj',  I  owe,  perhaps,  to  his  friend- 
ship, bravery  and  prudence.  In  1837,  after  I  was 
elected  to  the  office  of  Attorney-General  of  Illinois,  I 
got  into- a  difficulty  with  a  very  desperate  man,  who 
was  a  member  of  the  Senate,  and  he  challenged  me, 
and  General  James  Turney  was  selected  by  him  as  his 
second,  and  he  delivered  the  challenge  to  me.  I 
accepted  it,  and  referred  him  to  Colonel  John  Dement 
as  my  second,  who  would  fix  the  distance  and  select 
the  weapons.  Having  expected  this  before  I  received 
the  challenge,  I  had  informed  my  friend  Dement  that 
I  expected  to  be  challenge!  and  that  I  should  select 


222  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

him  for  my  second,  and  should  place  my  honor  and 
life  in  his  hands.  He  said  to  me:  "  Linder,  I  will 
take  charge  of  both;  and,  without  letting  your  honor 
suffer,  will  take  good  care  that  you  never  fight;  for  if 
you  do,  he  will  be  sure  to  kill  you,  for  he  is  as  cool 
and  desperate  as  a  bandit."  I  replied  that  the  matter 
would  be  placed  in  his  hands,  and  I  should  refer  his  sec- 
ond to  him  (Colonel  Dement)  as  my  second,  to  arrange 
the  distance  and  select  the  weapons  with  which  we 
would  fight.  Accordingly,  when  General  Turney  called 
upon  Colonel  Dement,  Dement  informed  l.im  that  we 
would  fight  with  pistols  at  close  quarters,  each  hold- 
ing one  end  of  the  same  handkerchief  in  his  teeth. 

"  My  God!"  replied  General  Turney,  "  Colonel  Dem- 
ent, that  amounts  to  the  deliberate  murder  of  both 
men." 

"It  don't  matter,"  said  Dement,  "your  principal  is 
cool,  desperate  and  deliberate,  while  my  friend  is  ner- 
vous and  excitable,  and  if  he  has  to  lose  his  life  your 
friend  must  bear  him  company." 

General  Turney  beino-  a  very  humane  and  honorable 
man,  and  really  as  much  my  friend  as  he  was  his  prin- 
cipal's, said  to  Colonel  Dement:  "Colonel,  this  meet- 
ing must  never  take  place;  so  let  you  and  I  take  this 
matter  in  hand  and  have  it  settled  in  an- amicable  way, 
honorable  to  both  parties." 

"The  very  thing,"  said  Colonel  Dement,  "that  I 
have  desired  to  bring  about.  Linder  is  a  3  oung  man 
and  has  just  been  elected  Attorney- General  of  the  State, 
and  -has  an  interesting  wife,  and  little  daughter  only 
four  years  old,  who  have  only  been  in  this  town  (Van- 
dalia)  but  a  few  days,  and  it  would  be  next  to  break- 


JOHN  DEMENT.  223 

V 

ing  my  heart  to  have  the  one  made  a  widow  and  the 
other  an  orphan." 

They  agreed  that  a  hostile  meeting  should  not 
take  place;  and  the  matter  was  amicably  and  honora- 
bly arranged  between  the  Senator  and  myself.  We 
met,  made  friends,  shook  hands,  and  to  the  last  day  of 
his  life  we  were  the  best  of  friends. 

Col.  Dement  has  filled  various  offices  of  honor  and 
trust  under  the  State  and  National  government.  He 
has  been  once  or  twice  Receiver  or  Register  of  our 
Land  Offices  in  Illinois;  and  in  every  position  he  has 
filled  he  has  acquitted  himself  with  honor. 

Col.  Dement,  I  believe,  is  a  native  of  Kentucky. 
He  has  always  been  a  Democrat  in  politics.  He  had 
an  utter  abhorrence  of  Abolitionists;  but  in  our  late 
civil  war  he  and  I  both  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  in 
favor  of  a  vigorous  prosecution  of  that  war.  We  spoke 
together  at  the  same  public  meetings  in  the  northern 
portion  of  this  State,  for  the  purpose  of  calling  our 
young  Illinois  chivalry  to  arms.  We  both  asserted 
publicly  in  our  speeches  that  it  was  a  war  to  save  the 
Union,  and  not  to  emancipate  the  negro,  or  to  make 
him  the  equal  of  the  white  man,  for  we  both  believed 
with  our  friend  Douglas,  who  had  often  asserted  it  on 
the  stump  and  elsewhere,  that  this  was  a  white  man's 
government,  made  by  white  men  and  for  the  benefit 
'of  the  white  race.  But  let  it  be  remembered  that 
these  joint  efforts  of  Col.  Dement  and  myself  were 
made  before  President  Lincoln's  emancipation  procla- 
mation, which  I  supported  as  a  war  measure,  believ- 
ing that  it  would  end  the  war  and  prevent  the  further 
shedding  of  fraternal  blood,  in  which  belief  it  seems 


224:  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

I  was  sadly  mistaken.  "Whether  Col.  Dement  sup- 
ported that  proclamation  I  do  not  know.  Upon  that 
subject  the  Democratic  party  were  somewhat  divided. 
I  remember  nothing  more  in  reference  to  the  public 
or  private  career  of  Col.  Dement  necessary  to  be  stated 
in  these  memoirs.  I  wish  my  readers  to  understand 
that  my  object  has  been  not  to  introduce  any  names 
into  this  history  except  those  who  are  worthy  to  go 
down  to  posterity,  and  that  the  name,  patriotism  and 
public  services  of  Col.  Dement  are  entitled  to  be  so 
perpetuated  I  have  not  the  least  doubt.  I  hope  that 
some  future  historian  will  do  more  justice  to  the  name 
of  Col.  Dement  than  one  who  has  had  to  draw  upon 
the  memory  of  a  frail  old  man.  If  these  memoirs 
should  go  into  print  during  the  life  of  Col.  Dement, 
and  ever  meet  his  eye,  I  hope  he  will  pardon  me  for 
any  errors  of  memory.  I  take  my  leave,  therefore,  of 
Col.  Dement,  and  will  pass  on  to  some  other  historic 
character. 


EICIIARD  YATES.  225 


KICHABD    YATES. 


i|E  AR  reader,  if  you  think  it  a  pleasant  task  to 
awake  the  memories  of  the  past,  and  call  back 
the  features  of  beloved  ones  that  are  gone,  and 
recount  the  pleasant  intercourse  that  occurred  between 
you  and  them,  you  are  very  much  mistaken.  Onr  rec- 
ollections of  our  living  friends  can  be  recounted  with- 
out any  sadness;  but  of  those  who  have  long  been 
dead,  such  recollections  are  like  visitants  from  the 
grave.  I  will  now  introduce  the  name  of  a  cherished 
friend  who  died  some  time  ago — I  mean  Richard  Yates, 
of  Morgan  county,  Illinois.  He  was  several  times  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  in  Congress 
from  his  district.  lie  was  repeatedly  a  member  of  the 
Legislature  of  Illinois;  once  Governor  of  the  State  of 
Illinois,  which  was  during  the  civil  war;  and  in  my 
humble  opinion  President  Grant  is  in  a  considerable 
degree  indebted  to  him  for  the  position  and  fame  he 
now  enjoys;  for  he  gave  him,  when  he  was  a  private 
citizen,  the  first  military  appointment  he  received.  It 
was  about  the  time  of  the  commencement  of  the  civil 
war.  It  is  true,  somebody,  whose  name  I  do  not  now 
remember,  recommended  him  to  Governor  Yates  when, 
we  were  sadly  in  need  of  some  qualified  person  to  dis- 
cipline our  troops.  Governor  Yates  was  looking 
15 


226  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

around  for  such  a  person,  and  asking  every  intelligent 
person  where  he  could  find  such  a  one,  when  he  who 
recommended  Grant  said  to  him: 

"  Governor  Yates,  there  is  Captain  Grant,  late  of 
the  United  States  Army,  and  a  graduate  of  the  West 
Point  Academy;  why  not  give  him  the  commission  of 
a  State  Colonel  to  drill  and  train  our  Illinois  volun- 
teers?" 

Yates  did  so,  and  I  am  inclined  to  think  it  was  a 
fortunate  thing  he  did  so,  for  Grant  had  the  peculiar 
talents  that  were  needed  at  that  time,  and  he  went  on 
from  one  promotion  to  another;  and  with  the  excep- 
tion of  one  or  two  unfortunate  reverses,  he  ascended 
from  victory  to  victory,  until  the  surrender  of  Lee 
crowned  him  as  the  great  captain  of  the  war,  and  cov- 
ered him  with  unfading  glory,  and  made  him  the  most 
prominent  man  as  candidate  for  the  future  presidency. 

At  the  time  of  his  appointment  by  Governor  Yates, 
Grant  was  unknown  to  fame;  but  a  few  knew  him  as 
an  ex-captain  of  the  Mexican  War,  and  but  for  this 
fortunate  selection,  perhaps  the  war  might  have 
resulted  in  misfortune  to  the  Union.  To  what  little 
-causes  are  we  indebted  for  great  results!  Bonaparte, 
who  conquered  nearly  the  whole  of  Europe,  and  of 
whom  England  stood  in  awe,  was  perhaps  indebted  for 
his  ultimate  success  to  the  i'act  of  his  having  returned 
the  sword  of  General  Beauharnais  to  his  orphan  son, 
Eugene  Beauharnais,  which  introduced  Napoleon  to 
the  boy's  mother,  to  whom  he  became  attached,  and 
afterwards  married;  and  through  whose  influence, 
counsel  and  advice,  anSr  the  influence  of  her  friends, 
J^apoleon  rose  from  one  position  to  another,  until  he 


RICHARD  TAXES.  227 

cast  his  mighty  shadow  across  the  civilized  world,  and 
the  eagles  of  France  were  hoisted  upon  the  capitals  of 
nearly  all  continental  Europe,  and  her  lilies  were 
fanned  by  the  breezes  that  swept  over  the  pyramids 
of  Egypt.  How  great  a  fire  is  sometimes  kindled  from 
a  mere  spark!  But  if  ever  Grant  should  kindle  such  a 
fire  as  Napoleon  did  (my  readers  must  not  understand 
me  as  predicting  such  a  result),  yet  I  do  not  want  to 
be  understood  as  underating  the  talents  of  General 
Grant,  especially  as  a  military  man.  I  am  free  to 
confess  that  he  is  no  ordinary  man ;  and  I  have  been 
informed  by  some  of  our  Democratic  Generals  that  he 
possessed  the  rarest  powers  of  military  combination. 
I  was  told  by  one  of  them  that  when  he  came  into  the 
army  of  the  Tennessee,  the  army  was  thoroughly 
demoralized,  their  communications  were  cut  off,  but 
that  in  less  than  ten  days  the  morale  of  the  army  was 
restored;  their  communications  re-opened;  the  half- 
starved  army  re-victualed,  and  order,  plenty  and  disci- 
pline prevailed  throughout  the  army.  This  is  really 
no  small  praise  to  be  bestowed  upon  any  man,  especially 
coining  from  a  political  opponent. 

Now,  worthy  reader,  if  I  have  not  led  you  away  too 
far  from  my  friend  Dick  Yates,  be  good  enough  to 
consider  him  as  the  starting  point  of  all  these  grand 
results. 

Governor  Yates,  as  my  readers  all  know,  was  eleva- 
ted to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  -He  was  a  man 
of  very  rare  elocution,  and  as  a  Fourth-of-July  orator 
had  but  few  equals,  if  any;  he  had  the  rare  facility  of 
stringing  beautiful  words  and  sentences  together. 

Yates  was  a  handsome  man,  and  I  never  saw  a  frown 


228  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

upon  his  countenance  in  my  life.  He  was  eminently 
social  and  a  little  too  convivial,  as  most  of  us  were  in 
early  times.  He  was  my  warmest  friend  and  most 
devoted  admirer.  I  learned  from  a  mutual  friend  of 
ours  that  Yates,  who  was  listening  to  an  effort  I  made 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  said  to  him  after  it 
was  over:  "There  is  no  use  talking,  Linder  is  the 
greatest  orator  of  this  State." 

Reader,  pardon  this  vanity  for  repeating  what  my 
old  friend  Yates  said,  and  may  I  not  be  pardoned  also 
for  saying  that  I  was  not  displeased  with  the  compli- 
ment paid  by  him  to  me?  If  he  had  any  faults  it  is 
not  my  business  either  to  remember  or  record  them. 

"  Teach  me  to  feel  another's  woe, 

To  hide  the  fault  I  see; 
That  mercy  I  to  others  show, 
That  mercy  show  to  me." 

I  will  say  this,  in  regard  to  my  old  friend  Yates: 
that  whatever  is  good  in  his  character  I  will  transmit 
to  posterity;  but  whatever  is  otherwise,  I  shall  be 
inclined  to  be  governed  by  the  sentiment  expressed  in 
Sterne's  "  Life  of  Tristram  Shandy,"  where  Corporal 
Trim,  the  servant  of  "  my  Uncle  Toby,"  had  visited  a 
wounded  officer  by  the  direction  of  his  master,  reported 
to  his  master  that  the  officer  must  surely  die.  "  ISTo, 
Trim,"  said  he,  "  he  must  not  die.  We  will  take  him 
and  nurse  him,  and  he  shall  not  die." 

"  I  tell  you,  master,  he  will  surely  die;  no  human 
efforts  can  save  him." 

"I  tell  you,"  said  my  Uncle  Toby,  "  by  G-d,  he  shall 
not  die." 

And  Sterne  says  that  the  accusing  spirit  that  flew  up 


RICHARD  YATES.  229 

to  heaven's  chancery  with  the  oath,  Hushed  when  he 
gave  it  in,  and  the  recording  angel,  when  he  wrote  it 
down,  dropped  a  tear  upon  the  word,  and  blotted  it  out 
forever."  And  with  a  charity  like  this  am  I  disposed 
to  deal  with  the  faults  of  ray  old  friend  Yates.  I 
believe  that  I  shall  meet  him  in  a  better  world,  for  he 
was  a  devout  Christian,  and  died  in  full  fellowship  with 
the  Methodist  Church. 

He,  Lincoln,  Hardin  and  myself  were  warm  perso- 
nal friends.  I  don't  believe,  so  far  as  his  honor  and 
integrity  were  concerned,  that  he  has  left  a  single  blot 
on  his  name. 


230  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JOHJST  SCHOLFIELD. 


{WILL  now  introduce  a  living  character  — 
Judge  John  Scholfield,  of  Clark  county,  Illi- 
nois, recently  elected  to  the  Supreme  bench 
of  this  State,  to  fill  the  vacancy  caused  by  the  resigna- 
tion of  Judge  Anthony  Thornton,  of  Shelbyviile,  111. 
He  is  quite  a  young  man  to  be  elevated  to  so  high  a 
position;  but  he  is  a  bright  and  shining  light  in  the 
legal  world,  and  should  he  reach  the  age  of  fifty  or 
sixty,  will  doubtless  make  himself  a  name  that  will 
deserve  to  fill  a  much  larger  place  in  our  legal  history 
than  I  can  give  to  him  at  the  present  time.  He  has 
not  been  at  the  bar  over  twenty  years,  and  never  filled 
any  judicial  station  previous  to  his  elevation  to  the 
Supreme  Bench,  although  he  was  a  member  of  the 
legislature  from  Clark  county  once  or  twice  previous 
to  his  election  as  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court.  He 
was  in  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1870.  I  knew 
him  before  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar — when  but  a 
mere  boy.  He  rose  from  the  very  humblest  walks  of 
life.  He  graduated  at  the  Law  School  of  Louisville, 
Ky.,  and  in  a  very  few  years  made  for  himself  a  repu- 
tation at  the  bar  that  older  lawyers  might  well  envy. 

I  have  met  him  repeatedly  at  the  bar,  and  have  been 
associated  with  him  and  opposed  to  him;  and,  in  my 
humble  opinion,  he  is  one  of  the  best  lawyers  of  his  age 


JOHN    SoilOLFIELD.  231 

I  ever  knew.  I  have  read  but  few  of  his  opinions  as 
Supreme  Judge,  but  I  entertain  no  fears  of  his  future. 
In  giving  my  testimony  to  his  high  and  transcendent 
legal  ability,  I  know  that  I  am  in  excellent  company. 
Judge  Breese,  of  our  Supreme  Bench,  who  ought  to 
be  considered  good  authority  as  to  a  man's  legal  at- 
tainments, asked  me  some  eight  or  ten  years  ago  if 
I  had  kept  the  run  of  John  Scholfield  since  I  had  been 
living  in  Chicago.  I  told  told  him  that  I  had  not  to 
any  very  great  extent.  u  Well,  sir,"  said  he,  "  differ 
me  to  say  to  you  that  he  is  one  of  the  most  promising 
young  lawyers  in  America.  He  has  practiced  regu- 
larly in  our  court  in  such  cases  as  came  up  by  appeal 
and  writ  of  error  from  the  Wabash  Courts,  and  I  have 
had  a  good  opportunity  of  estimating  his  ability,  and 
know  of  no  lawyer,  old  or  young,  that  I  can  place  above 
him."  And  Col.  John  Baird,  of  Terre  Haute,  himself 
one  of  the  best  lawyers  in  Indiana,  told  me  not  four 
years  ago  that  Scholfield  was  the  best  lawyer  he  ever 
knew;  and  that  seems  to  be  the  prevailing  opinion 
with  the  legal  fraternity  wherever  he  is  known. 

It  may  be  thought  in  bad  taste  on  my  part  to  intro- 
duce so  young  a  man  into  these  memoirs,  but  I  could 
not  deny  myself  the  pleasure  of  heralding  his  approach 
to  the  coming  generation  of  lawyers,  and  to  them  I 
leave  the  task  of  finishing  what  I  have  begun,  which, 
duty,  I  have  no  doubt,  will  be  performed  with  more 
ability  and  accuracy  than  I  have  discharged  mine.. 
His  future  I  leave  with  them,  knowing  that  he  will  be 

'  O 

in  safe  hands;  so  for  the  present,  friend  John,  I  bid 
you  good-bye  and  God-speed,  in  your  onward  march  up. 
the  slippery  heights  of  fame. 


232  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JAMES  HUGHES. 


Y  READERS  must  pardon  me  for  stepping 
across  the  State  line  dividing  Indiana  and 
Illinois,  and  introducing  the  names  of  a  few 
men  eminent  in  the  legal  profession  and  not  unknown 
to  the  political  world,  and  nearly  as  well  known  in  Illi- 
nois as  Indiana.  I  therefore  introduce  to  my  readers 
the  name  of  Judge  James  Hughes,  before  whom  I  prac- 
ticed when  he  was  Judge  of  the  circuit  court  at  Terre 
Haute  and  other  Wabash  counties.  When  I  knew 
him,  he  resided  in  Bloomington,  Ind.,  and  I  also  prac- 
ticed in  his  court  at  that  place. 

Besides  being  judge  of  the  circuit  court,  he  was 
also  professor  and  secturer  in  the  Law  School  at 
Bloomington.  My  acquaintance  with  him  continued 
until  he  retired  from  the  circuit  court  bench,  and  we 
often  met  as  lawyers  at  the  Terre  Haute  and  Sullivan, 
courts,  and  were  sometimes  associated  together  in 
important  causes.  The  last  one  that  I  recollect  was  in 
Sullivan  county,  in  which  the  Yincennes  University 
was  plaintiff,  and  Samuel  Judah,  an  old  and  eminent 
lawyer  of  Yincennes,  Ind.,  was  defendant.  It  was  on 
that  occasion  that  we  had  a  long  and  confidential  con- 
versation in  reference  to  some  of  the  great  men  of  this 
country.  I  remember  to  have  said  to  him  when  he 


JAMES  HUGHES.  233 

and  I  were  on  a  long  walk,  that]  Mr.  Webster,  though 
I  had  never  seen  him,  was  in  my  opinion  the  greatest 
orator  in  America.  "  Well,"  said  he,  "  Linder,  I  have 
heard  him  and  Clay  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
and  suffer  me  to  say  to  you  that  that  little  man 
Douglas,  of  your  State,  whom  I  have  also  heard  repeat- 
edly in  the  same  body,  as  a  speaker  and  debater, 
dwarfed  both  of  them.  Although,"  said  he,  "Judge 
Douglas,  from  his  political  course,  has  not  made  for 
himself  a  very  warm  place  in  my  affections,  as  a 
debater,  in  my  opinion  Judge  Douglas  never  had  an 
equal  in  that  body."  And  Judge  Hughes  was  certainly 
no  incompetent  judge  of  men. 

Since  I  removed  from  Coles  county  to  Chicago,  my 
personal  intercourse  with  Judge  Hughes  has  ceased. 
My  readers,  I  presume,  are  aware  that  for  a  considera- 
ble time  he  was  one  of  the  Judges  of  the  Court  of 
Claims  at  Washington,  and  if  my  memory  does  not 
fail  me,  he  was  appointed  to  that  office  by  James  Bu- 
chanan One  of  my  principal  reasons  for  introducing 
Judge  Hughes  was,  that  I  might  give  his  opinion  of 
Mr.  Douglas,  my  old  friend,  whose  memory  is  inter- 
twined with  every  fibre  of  my  heart,  and  whose  name 
and  fame,  as  far  as  I  am  able,  I  wish  to  exalt  in  the 
opinion  of  my  countrymen. 


234  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


ALFEED  W.  AEEISTGTOK 


[CANNOT  refrain  from  introducing  here  the 
name  of  a  man  who  died  in  the  city  of  Chicago 
a  few  years  ago.  He  was  really  one  of  the 
eminent  lawyers  in  America,  and  a  .man  of  great 
learning — I  mean  Judge  Alfred  W.  Arrington.  He 
was  over  sixty  at  the  time  of  his  death.  I  do  not  know 
the  State  where  he  was  born,  but  I  do  know  that  it 
was  some  one  of  the  Southern  States,  for  I  have  heard 
him  say  he  was  a  Southern  man.  He  began  his  career 
as  a  Methodist  preacher  in  the  northern  part  of  Indiana, 
and  rode  the  circuit  in  the  Whitewater  region ;  and 
the  clerk  of  the  United  States  Circuit  Court  of  Indi- 
anapolis, told  me  that  he  had  often  heard  him  preach 
while  on  his  circuit  and  at  camp-meeting,  and  that  he 
literally  set  all  that  country  on  fire  by  his  magical  elo- 
quence and  oratory.  During  the  time  of  my  acquain- 
tance with  Judge  Arrington,  his  voice  was  very  much 
shattered  and  impaired,  which  I  attributed  to  his 
speaking  in  the  open  air  wyhen  a  preacher.  His  voice 
was  a  kind  of  whisper,  but  he  could  make  himself 
heard  by  his  audience,  for  such  was  the  respect  paid 
to  his  talent  and  genius  that  the  most  profound  silence 
prevailed  while  he  was  speaking;  during  such  times 
you  might  hear  a  pin  fall.  He  was  generally  sought 


ALFRED  "W.  ARKINGTOK.  235 

for  by  one  side  or  the  other  in  the  most  important 
causes  in  the  State  and  Federal  Courts.  The  case,  how- 
ever, in  which  lie  most  distinguished  himself  was  the 
divorce  case  brought  by  Mrs.  Stewart  against  her  hus- 
band, Hart  L.  Stewart,  Judge  Arrington  being  in  the 
defense.  His  statement  of  the  facts  in  his  opening 
speech  to  the  jury  and  his  comments  thereon,  is  one  of 
the  finest  specimens  of  legal  eloquence  I  ever  read. 
Nothing  that  ever  fell  from  the  lips  of  Phillips,  Cur- 
ran  or  Grattan  surpasses  it. 

He  not  only  practiced  in  the  Federal  Courts  of  Chi- 
cago, but  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
at  Washington,  and  was  as  much  distinguished  there 
as  he  was  ill  the  courts  of  Illinois. 

In  the  Stewart  trial  great  efforts  had  been  made  on 
the  part  of  the  plaintiff  to  make  out  a  case  against  him 
(the  defendant).  They  had  employed  lewd  women  to 
seduce  him,  and  put  detectives  on  his  track  to  watch 
and  report  the  result  of  their  plan.  I  should  have  sta- 
ted that  Stewart  was  a  young  preacher  of  the  gospel. 
But  Stewart  got  wind  of  their  plans  to  entrap  him  into 
criminal  intercourse  with  these  women,  and  employed 
detectives  of  his  own  to  watch  those  of  the  other  side. 
One  of  these  women  followed  Stewart  to  some  one  of 
the  Eastern  cities  and  managed  to  get  into  his  room: 
but  Stewart  was  too  fast  for  her  and  had  already  secreted 
his  detective  under  the  bed  in  his  (Stewart's)  room. 

This  demi-monde  had  the  power  of  making  herself 
very  bewitching  and  attractive  when  she  chose.  She 
had  got  into  the  room  and  thrown  down  the  bed-clothes 
and  caught  Stewart  round  the  neck  and  pulled  him 
down  on  to  the  bed,  and  as  she  was  pulling  up  the 


236  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

bed -clothes  Mrs.  Stewart's  detective  entered  the  room, 
exclaiming,  as  he  did  so:  "I've  caught  you,  have  I, 
Mr.  Stewart? "  And  at  that  moment  Stewart's  detective 
came  out  from  under  the  bed,  saying  to  the  other  detec- 
tive: "I  rather  think  I've  caught  you;  -I  have  been 
aware  for  some  time  of  this  nice  little  trap  which  you 
and  your  principal  have  set  to  catch  Hart  L.  Stewart, 
and  I  think  I  have  circumvented  you." 

On  the  first  trial  of  this  divorce  case,  where  Judge 
Arriugton  displayed  such  marvelous  talent  and  elo- 
quence, the  jury  returned  a  verdict  in  favor  of  Hart  L. 
Stewart,  the  defendant;  but  on  a  new  trial,  in  which 
Judge  Arrington  did  not  defend,  the  plaintiff  got  a 
verdict  and  they  were  divorced.  There  are  many  other 
cases  that  I  might  enumerate,  going  to  prove  the  pre- 
eminent talents  of  Judge  Arrington,  but  I  will  let  this 
suffice. 

Judge  Arrington  was  not  only  a  great  orator,  but 
he  was  also  a  very  considerable  poet,  and  I  believe  his 
wife  or  daughter  since  his  death  has  published  a 
small  book  of  his  poems.  I  have  never  seen  the  book, 
but  Judge  Arrington  in  his  life-time  showed  me  quite 
a  number  of  his  poetic  effusions,  and  they  possessed 
many  characteristics  of  excellence.  One  of  the  finest 
things  that  was  ever  written  fell  from  his  pen — I 
mean  his  "Apostrophe  to  Cold  Water."  I  wish  I  could 
recall  it  so  as  to  insert  some  specimens  of  it  here. 

Judge  Arrington,  as  I  have  already  stated,  was  a 
preacher  in  the  Methodist  Church,  but  shortly  before 
his  death  he  became  a  Catholic,  and  died  in  that  faith. 

After  he  ceased  preaching  and  became  a  member  of 
the  bar,  he  went  to  Texas,  and  in  a  short  time  he  was 


ALFRED  "W.  ARKINGTON.  237 

made  Judge  of  one  of  their  circuit  courts.  He  did 
not  remain  long  in  the  South;  he  told  me  himself  that 
there  was  too  much  rowdyism  there  to  suit  his  taste. 

I  think  he  was  as  profoundly  and  deeply  read  in  the 
common  and  civil  law,  and  also  in  equity  law  as 
any  one  I  ever  knew.  He  had  a  very  large  brain — as 
large,  if  not  larger,  than  that  of  Daniel  Webster. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  any  lawyer  to  collect  and 
read  his  printed  briefs,  on  file  in  the  Federal  and 
State  courts.  He  was  a  ripe  classical  scholar.  I  have 
heard  him  quote  by  the  paragraph  from  the  Pandects 
and  Novels  of  the  civil  law.  His  knowledge  of  Greek 
was  equal  to  that  of  his  knowledge  of  Latin.  Henry 
Clav  Dean,  of  Iowa,  told  me  that  Arrington  was  a  cous- 

tt  *  i  O 

in  of  his.  He  also  told  me  in  the  same  conversation 
that  Arrington  used  to  write  speeches  for  the  members 
in  Congress,  and  that  many  of  them  got  credit  for  elo- 
quence which  was  really  not  theirs,  but  Arlington's. 

It  is  painful  to  have  to  write  the  biographical  sketch 
of  a  man  to  whose  memory  and  fame  you  feel  you 
cannot  do  full  justice;  and  such  is  my  condition  at 
the  present  time  in  reference  to  Judge  Arrington, 
the  materials  which  I  have  being  too  scant  and  mea- 
gre to  do  him  full  justice.  I  must  therefore  do  with 
him  as  I  have  done  with  some  others — leave  his  his- 
tory to  be  written  up  by  some  abler  pen  than  mine, 
and  by  some  person  in  possession  of  larger  and  ampler 
materials  than  mine.  I  wish  to  say  to  the  bar  gener- 
ally, and  especially  to  the  younger  members,  that  he 
was  the  most  perfect  model  of  a  gentleman  and  law- 
yer that  I  ever  knew,  and  they  would  do  well  to  take 
him  as  an  example,  and  walk  in  the  lofty  path  he  trod. 


238  LLNDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


AEOHIE  WILLIAMS. 


(SHALL  now  introduce  the  name  of  a  man 
widely  and  favorably  known  in  Illinois  and 
the  West  as  one  of  the  most  profound  lawyers? 
and  especially  as  a  land-lawyer,  that  Illinois  has  ever 
produced — I  allude  to  Archie  Williams,  who  was  late 
one  of  the  Federal  judges  of  Kansas — one  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's appointees.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Legisla- 
ture of  Illinois  in  1836  and  1837,  and  of  the  same 
House  with  Lincoln,  Douglas  and  myself.  He  was 
over  six  feet  high,  and  as  angular  and  ungainly  in  his 
form  as  Mr.  Lincoln  himself;  and  for  homeliness  of 
face  and  feature,  surpassed  Mr.  Lincoln.  I  think  I 
never  saw  but  one  man  uglier  than  Archie,  and  that 
was  Patrick  II.  Darbey,  of  Kentucky — also  a  very  great 
lawyer,  who  once  had  a  brace  of  pistols  presented  to 
him  by  a  traveler  he  met  upon  the  road,  both  being 
on  horseback,  who  suddenly  stopped,  and  asked  Darbey 
to  stop  also,  and  said  to  the  latter  gentleman:  "Here 
is  a  brace  of  pistols  which  belongs  to  yon."  "  How 
do  you  make  that  out?"  said  Darbey.  "They  were 
given  to  me  a  long  time  ago  by  a  stranger,  who 
requested  me  to  keep  them  until  I  met  an  uglier  man 
than  myself,  arid  I  have  carried  them  for  over  twenty 
years;  and  I  had  begun  to  think  that  they  would  go  to 


AKCHIE  WILLIAMS.  239 

my  lieirs  when  I  died,  but  you  are  the  rightful  owner 
of  the  pistols.  I  give  them  to  you  as  they  were  given 
to  me,  to  be  kept  till  you  meet  with  an  uglier  man  than 
you  are,  and  then  you  will  present  them  to  him;  but 
you  will  die  the  owner  of  this  property,  for  I'll  be 

d d  if  there  is  an  uglier  man  than  you  in  the  world, 

and  the  Lord  did  his  everlasting  best  to  make  you  so 
when  he  created  you." 

Darbey  accepted  the  pistols,  and  I  never  heard  of 
their  passing  out  of  his  hands.  I  know  not  what 
might  have  occurred  had  he  and  Archie  Williams 
ever  met.  If  there  had  been  a  jury  trial  of  the  right 
of  property  between  them,  I  think  it  altogether  likely 
it  might  have  resulted  in  a  "  hung  jury." 

Archie  Williams  sat  near  to  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the 
southeast  corner  of  the  old  State  House  in  Vandalia, 
on  his  left,  and  I  remember  one  day  of  a  friend  of  mine 

asking  me  "who  in  the  h 1  those  two  ugly  men 

were."  Archie  and  Mr.  Lincoln  were  great  friends. 
I  recollect  Mr.  Lincoln  asking  me  on  one  occasion  if 
I  didn't  think  Archie  Williams  was  one  of  the  strong- 

O 

est-minded  and  clearest  headed  men  in  Illinois.  I 
don't  know  what  reply  I  made  at  the  time,  but  I  know 
Mr.  Lincoln  said  that  he  thought  him  the  strongest- 
minded  and  clearest  headed  man  he  ever  saw.  In 
1852,  when  the  old  Whig  party  made  its  last  fight  on 
old  General  Scott,  I  received  a -pressing  invitation 
from  Archie,  O.  H.  Browning,  and  others,  to  come 
and  canvass  the  district  in  which  Mr.  Brownin^  was 

O 

running  against  Wm.  A.  Richardson  for  Congress. 

After  some  time  I  accepted  the  invitation.  I  remem- 
ber that  Richardson  was  very  much  a'armed  when  he 


240  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

heard  that  I  had  come  to  canvass  the  district  against 
him,  and  it  was  not  long  till  he  had  Mr.  Douglas  there 
canvassing  it  for  him,  and  kept  him  there  till  the  elec- 
tion was  over.  It  was  during  this  time  that  there  was 
an  anniversary  convention  of  the  Whigs  at  Rock 
Island,  to  commemorate  a  treaty  made  with  the  Indians 
by  General  Scott  some  twenty  or  twenty-one  years 
prior  to  this  time,  which  was  held  on  the  lower  point 
of  the  island,  where  the  stand  for  the  speakers  was 
erected.  I  was  invited  to  this  convention  by  the  citi- 
zens of  Rock  Island  and  accepted  the  invitation, 
and  it  was  there  I  first  met  Governor  Bebb,  of  Ohio. 
We  both  spoke  there  to  a  great  multitude  of  people. 
It  was  there  also  I  met  a  very  wealthy  man  of  the 
name  of  Le  Glair;  he  wa>  half  Indian  and  half  French, 
and  was  the  interpreter  at  that  treaty  between  Gen. 
Scott  and  the  Indians.  He  was  the  owner  of  the  Le 
Clair  House  in  Davenport,  just  across  the  river  from 
Rock  Island,  and  a  splendid  hotel  it  was.  I  had  a  long 
conversation  with  Le  Clair,  and  he  told  me  some  very 
amusing  anecdotes  of  old  Gov.  Reynolds,  who  was 
present  at  this  treaty,  which  I  have  now  forgotten, 
over  which  I  know  I  laughed  heartily  at  the  time  of 
their  recital  by  Le  Clair. 

But  as  I  have  wandered  far  away  from  my  friend 
Archie  Williams,  I  will  return  again  to  Quincy,  where 
he  resided.  There  was  a  Whig  convention  held  there 
after  my  return  to  that  place,  at  which  I  was  one  of 
the  speakers,  and  having  learned  that  a  low,  dirty 
loco-foco,  who  had  by  some  inscrutable  will  of  Provi- 
dence got  into  the  legislature  when  I  was  a  member, 
and  who  had  also  risen  to  be  mayor  of  Quincy,  had 


ARCHIE  WILLIAMS.  241 

been  going  around  the  count}7  attacking  my  personal 
character.  I  opened  upon  him  in  my  speech  and  held 
him  up  to  the  scorn  and  indignation  of  my  auditors. 
.His  name  was  William  Pitman,  and  the  cowardly 
wretch  waylaid  me  as  I  was  passing  from  the  post-office 
to  my  hotel,  the  Quincy  House,  having  hid  himself  be- 
hind a  couple  of  goods  boxes,  being  armed  with  a  large 
hickory  cane,  jumped  out  from  his  place  of  concealment 
just  as  I  passed,  and  commenced  striking  me  with  his 
cane  oyer  my  head,  from  behind.  It  is  a  wonder  he 
did  not  kill  me,  for  I  had  nothing  with  which  to  defend 
myself,  with  the  exception  of  a  small  gold-headed 
ebony  cane.  I  turned  upon  him,  however,  and  broke 
as  well  as  I  could  the  force  of  his  blows  with  my  small 
cane,  which  broke  near  up  to  my  hand.  I  still  pressed 
on  upon  him,  and  fortunately  for  me,  his  cane  broke 
close  up  to  his  hand;  but  not  until  I  had  received 
upon  my  head  some  eight  or  ten  blows.  I  however 
caught  him  by  his  hair,  but  being  so  much  weakened 
by  the  loss  of  blood  and  the  concussion  upon  my 
brain,  I  could  not  hold  him,  though  1  struck  him  sev- 
eral blows  in  the  face,  and  he  finally  pulled  loose,  and 
without  his  hat,  turned  tail  and  ran  like  a  turkey. 
After  I  had  <jot  mv  head  dressed  by  a  r>hvsician,  whom 

£5  u  (/  I        »/ 

my  friends,  Williams,  Browning  and  Gen.  Singleton 
brought  to  me,  I  armed  myself  with  a  good  revolver 
furnished  me  by  Gen.  Singleton,  and  made  straight  for 
his  house,  but  he  was  not  there.  I  went  boldly  into 
his  house  and  inquirei  of  the  inmates  where  he  was. 
They  told  me  he  had  left  town  a  short  time  before.  I 
was  determined  if  I  had  met  him  in  his  own  parlor  to 
plaster  its  walls  with  his  brains.  He  did  not  return 
16 


242  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

for  several  days,  and  when  he  did  he  took  remarkably 
good  care  to  keep  out  of  my  way.       *       *       *       * 

On  this  occasion  Archie  AYilliams  acted  the  part  of 
a  man  and  true  friend.     He  sympathized  with  me  to 
the  fullest  extent,  and  I  feel  it  my  duty  here  to  say 
that  an  honester  man  and  a  more  devoted  and  faithful ' 
friend  never  lived  than  Archie  Williams. 

I  wish  to  say  here  in  this  connection,  before  my  leav- 
ing entirely  the  subject  of  this  rencounter  with  Pit- 
man, that  after  it  had  taken  place  about  a  dozen  young 
chivalric  Whigs  from  St.  Louis  came  to  my  rooms  to 
oifer  their  sympathies  to  me  and  express  their  admira- 
tion for  the  gallant  way  in  which  I  had  acted  on  that 
occasion,  and  oifered  their  services  to  hunt  up  my 
assailant  and  take  vengeance  upon  him,  which  I  kindly 
and  politely  declined;  telling  them  that  I  felt  myself 
adequate  to  that  task  and  did  not  wish  to  leave  it  in 
the  hands  of  another,  although  he  might  be  a  brother. 

I  learned  from  a  female  relative  of  mine,  who  \vas  a 
visitor  at  the  house  of  Col.  Richardson,  that  in  two  or 
three  days  after  the  occurrence  between  Pitman  and 
myself,  he  came  to  Richardson's  and  entered  the  parlor 
where  she  and  Mrs.  Richardson  were  sitting,  there 
being  no  others  present,  he  evidently  expecting  sym- 
pathy from  Mrs.  Richardson ;  but  he  was  sadly  disap- 
pointed, for  the  first  words  she  addressed  to  him  were: 
^'Pitman,  lam  ashamed  of  you ;  you  have  disgraced 
•our  party;  you  have  acted  the  part  of  a  coward  and  an 
assassin;  you  waylaid  Gen.  Linder,  armed  with  a  great 
hickory  bludgeon,  when  he  was  wholly  unaware  of  your 
intention  to  attack  him,  and  as  soon  as  he  had  passed 
you  on  the  sidewalk  you  slipped  out  from  your  con- 


ARCHIE  WILLIAMS.  243 

cealment  and  struck  him  with  your  bludgeon  from 
behind  his  back,  and  .when  he  turned  upon  you,  com- 
menced retreating,  and  finally  fled  in  a  most  dastardly 
manner,  hatless  and  honorless;  and  as  soon  as  you  could 
saddle  your  horse  fled  from  the  city  of  Quincy  to  escape 
the  punishment  which  your  cowardly  heart  told  you 
he  would  inflict  upon  you;  and  if  you  have  come  here 
for  sympathy  from  me  or  Col.  Richardson  because  we 
are  of  the  same  politics  as  you  are,  I  want  you  to  under- 
stand that  you  are  mistaken,  for  we  have  no  fellow- 
feeling  with  such  a  craven  coward  as  you  are." 

My  relative  told  me  he  looked  like  he  could  sink 
^through  the  floor,  and  without  saying  a  word  in  reply, 
he  bowed  to  the  two  ladies  and  left  the  house. 

I  know  not  at  this  time  whether  Pitman  is  dead  or 
living.  *  *  *  I  am  a  Uni versa! ist  in  my 

religious  creed,  in  which  I  may  be  wrong,  but  if  I 
were  offered  a  seat  in  heaven  by  the  side  of  Pitman  I 
am  not  sure  that  I  would  accept  it. 

I  now  take  my  final  leave  of  my  friend  Archie  Wil- 
liams, who  has  long  since  gone  to  his  last  account; 
and  if  I  am  right  in  my  views  of  the  mercies  of  God, 
he  is  now  walking  the  golden  streets  with  Douglas 
and  Lincoln,  where  I  expect  at  no  distant  day  to  join 
them;  and  on  the  green  and  sunny  banks  of  deliver- 
ance, strike  hands  with  the  old  friends  about  whom  I 
have  written,  and  sit  down  with  them  and  sing  the 
song  of  "Moses  and  the  Lamb;"  till  which  time  I 

O  ' 

bid  farewell  to  the  memories  of  them  all,  and  will  now 
turn  my  attention  to  another  name. 


244:  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JAMES  SOTGLETON. 


jjHE  next  name  that  I  shall  introduce  here  is 
that  of  my  old  friend  General  James  Single- 
ton, now  of  Adams  county,  Illinois,  and  I 
believe  a  resident  of  the  city  of  Quincy,  where  he 
lives,  as  I  have  been  informed  recently,  in  a  palatial 
private  residence,  and  dispenses  his  hospitalities  to  all 
his  old  friends  who  call  upon  him,  with  the  elegance 
and  munificence  of  a  prince;  and  what  is  still  better, 
the  cordiality  of  an  old  Virginia  gentleman,  in  which 
glorious  old  commonwealth  he  was  born  and  educated 
.  until  he  came  to  man's  estate.  How  old  he  was  when 
he  came  out  to  the  Western  country  I  know  not. 
The  commencement  of  my  personal  acquaintance  with 
him  dates  back  as  far  as  1840,  and  it  may  be  a  year 
or  so  earlier.  I  served  in  the  legislature  with  him 
in  the  lower  House  one  or  two  sessions,  between  1846 
and  1850.  We  did  not  always  agree  upon  matters 
which  came  before  that  body,  but  we  were  from  the 
commencement  of  our  acquaintance  up  to  the  last  time 
we  met,  intimate  and  devoted  friends.  In  1852,  he 
lived  in  Brown  county,  I  'believe  at  the  county  seat, 
through  which  I  passed  after  leaving  Quincy,  and  at 
which  I  stopped  with  my  female  relative  before  al- 
luded to,  and  there  partook  of  General  Singleton's 
hospitality. 


JAMES  SINGLETON.  245 

Gen.  Singleton  was  a  Whig  of  the  Henry  Clay 
school.  He  was  a  man  of  unquestioned  bravery, 
and  was  descended  from  a  race  of  brave  men.  I  have 
had  it  from  men  who  knew  the  facts,  that  his  father 
whipped  and  killed  a  great  black  bear  in  the  moun- 
tains of  Virginia  in  a  fair  stand-up  fight,  with  no 
weapon  on  his  part  other  thau  a  butcher  knife.  This 
may  seem  strange  to  those  who  know  nothing  about 
the  bear.  But  those  who  are  acquainted  with  that 
gentleman,  know  that  when  attacked  by  a  man  he  will 
rear  himself  upon  his  hind  legs  and  box  like  a  pugilist, 
and  woe  be  to  the  man  who  comes  to  close  quarters 
with  bruin,  and  gets  within  his  hug.  But  Mr.  Sin- 
gleton, the  father  of  the  subject  of  this  sketch,  knew 
what  an  enemy  he  had  to  deal  with,  and  so  skillfully 
conducted  the  combat,  that  after  having  several  large 
pieces  of  flesh  bitten  out  of  his  body,  he  dispatched  the 
gentleman  and  went  home  with  his  skin  and  choice 
bits  of  his  flesh,  upon  which  flesh  he  and  his  family 
made  a  most  delicious  repast.  My  father,  who  was  an 
old  bear-hunter,  has  often  told  me  there  was  no  meat 
so  delicious  as  bear-meat,  and  I  have  heard  him  say 
that  he  has  drank  a  pint  of  bear's  oil  in  the  form  of 
what  we  would  call  gravy,  without  turning  his  stom- 
ach. When  I  was  but  a  babe,  some  sixty-five  years 
ago,  Kentucky  was  a  perfect  hunter's  heaven,  full  of 
deer,  elk,  bear  and  buffalo,  beaver,  otter,  turkey  and 
many  other  kinds  of  game;  and  they  made  bacon  of 
the  bear  and  cured  his  meat  as  we  do  that  of  the  hog 
at  the  present  day. 

General  Singleton,  with  John  J.  Hardin,  Stephen 
A.  Douglas  and  others,  figured  prominently  in  what 


24:6  LINDER*S  REMINISCENCES. 

was  called  the  Mormon  war  which  occurred  during  the 
administration  of  Governor  Ford,  when  the  Mormon 
power,  under  Joe  Smith,  was  located  at  Nauvoo,  on 
the  Mississippi  river,  but  which  was  happily  settled 
by  a  skillful  negotiation  with  Joe  Smith,  conducted  on 
the  part  of  the  State  by  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  and  no 
blood  at  that  time  was  spilt. 

After  1852, 1  met  Gen.  Singleton  in  Springfield,  111., 
during  the  session  of  the  legislature,  when  neither 
of  us  were  members  of  that  body.  Since  that  time  I 
do  not  recollect  to  have  met  Gen.  Singleton,  but  I 
have  learned  from  good  authority  that  he  went  to 
Washington  City  during  our  civil  war,  on  the  invita- 
tion of  President  Lincoln,  who  sent  him  to  Richmond 
on  a  secret  and  confidential  embassy,  to  feel  the  pulse 
of  the  South,  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  if  an 
amicable  arrangement  could  not  be  made,  restoring 
the  Union  and  preventing  further  bloodshed.  A  bet- 
ter man  for  that  purpose  could  not  have  been  sent. 
Being  a  native  of  Virginia  and  having  a  large  and 
extensive  acquaintance,  and  being  also  brave  and  popu- 
lar with  Yirginians,  it  might  reasonably  be  expected 
that  if  any  man  could  effect  an  vthing  with  the  South- 
ern Confederacy  it  would  be  Gen.  Singleton;  but  the 
South  were  in  no  mood  to  listen  to  any  terms  of  accom- 
modation coming  from  or  through  whatever  source 
they  might.  So  General  Singleton  returned  to  Wash- 
ington City  and  reported  to  President  Lincoln  the 
fruitlessness  ot  his  embassy.  The  foregoing  facts  I 
did  not  derive  from  Gen.  Singleton,  but  got  them 
from  other  sources.  If  I  am  wrong  in  the  character 
of  his  visit  to  Richmond,  he,  when  these  memoirs  meet 


JAMES  SINGLETON.  247 

his  eyes,  can  set  me  right.  Taking  what  I  have  said 
to  be  true,  there  is  certainly  nothing  in  it  discreditable 
to  him,  but  his  conduct  was  every  way  patriotic  and 
honorable. 

There  is  little  more  I  have  here  to  say  of  Gen.  Sin- 
gleton, save  that  I  have  heard  through  a  long  series 
of  years,  that  he  has  made  and  spent  some  three  or 
four  fortunes,  and  now  is  the  owner  of  a  splendid  and 
nnincumbered  estate  in  Adams  County,  111.;  and  I  am 
safe  in  saying  that  in  all  the  vicissitudes  through  which 
he  has  passed,  he  has  not  left  a  single  blot  or  stain 
upon  his  honesty  or  honor.  He  is  a  lawyer  by  profes- 
sion and  of  decided  talents  and  ability  as  such;  but  he 
has  figured  more  in  the  political  than  the  legal  arena. 

If  I  have  not  done  full  justice  to  Gen.  Singleton  in 
this  sketch,  it  has  not  been  for  want  of  a  warm  and 
ardent  desire  to  do  so;  and  it  would  grieve  me  to  the 
heart  if  a  failure  on  my  part  in  that  respect  should 
disturb  for  a  moment  the  long  and  cordial  friendship 
which  has  existed  between  us.  I  look  back  to  the 
intercourse  and  intimacy  which  has  existed  between 
Gen.  Singleton  and  myself  for  more  than  thirty-five 
years,  with  as  much  pleasure  as  I  do  to  my  friendship, 
and  intercourse  with  any  other  man. 


248  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


E.  D.  BAKER 


SHALL  now  introduce  to  my  readers  the  name 
of  Colonel  E.  D.  Baker,  of  Springfield,  Illi- 
nois. He  was  elected  to  the  lower  House  of 
the  legislature  of  Illinois,  from  Sangamon  county,  to 
fill  some  vacancy  that  occurred  by  death  or  resignation, 
and  took  his  seat  at  the  special  or  call  session,  whicli 
occurred  in  the  summer  of  1837.  At  that  time  I  was 
not  personally  acquainted  with  Col.  Baker;  bat  became 
so  in  the  fall  of  1837,  in  Carrollton,  at  a  term  of  the 
Green  county  Circuit  Court,  at  which  term  Judge 
Stephen  T.  Logan,  whose  life  I  have  already  sketched, 
and  Col.  Baker  were  in  attendance  ;  and  it  M'as 
arranged  between  the  friends  of  these  two  gentlemen, 
who  were  of  the  extreme  Whio;  and  bank  school,  and 

O  * 

the  friends  of  Josiah  Lamborn  and  myself,  of  the 
opposite  school,  should  debate  the  several  questions — 
a  bank  tariff,  etc. — -then  at  issue  between  the  two  great 
parties  of  the  nation.  The  debate  lasted  for  three  or 
four  consecutive  nights. 

On  a  later  occasion,  when  Col.  Baker  and  myself  were 
both  battling  together  in  the  Whig  cause,  at  a  conven- 
tion held  in  Springfield,  I  made  a  speech  at  the  State 
House,  which  I  think  now,  looking  back  at  it  from  this 
point,  was  the  very  best  I  ever  made  in  my  life;  and 


E.  D.  BAKER.  249 

while  I  was  addressing  the  vast  assembly  some  ruffian 
in  the  galleries  flung  at  me  a  gross  personal  insult, 
accompanied  with  a  threat.  Lincoln  and  Col.  Baker, 
who  were  both  present,  and  warm  personal  and  political 
friends  of  mine,  anticipating  that  I  might  be  attacked 
when  I  left  the  State  House,  came  up  upon  the  stand  a 
little  before  I  concluded  my  speech  and  took  their  sta- 
tion on  each  side  of  me,  and  when  I  was  through,  and, 
after  my  audience  had  greeted  me  with  three  hearty 
cheers,  each  took  one  of  my  arms,  and  Lincoln  said 
tome:  "  Lin  der,  Baker  and  I  are  apprehensive  that 
you  may  be  attacked  by  some  of  those  ruffians  who 
insulted  you  from  the  galleries,  and  we  have  come  up 
to  escort  you.  to  your  hotel.  We  both  think  we  can 
do  a  little  fighting,  so  we  want  you  to  walk  between 
us  until  we  get  you  to  your  hotel;  your  quarrel  is  our 
quarrel,  and  that  of  the  great  Whig  party  of  this 
nation,  and  your  speech  upon  this  occasion  is  the 
greatest  one  that  has  been  made  by  any  of  us,  for 
which  we  wish  to  honor,  love  and  defend  you." 

This  I  consider  no  ordinary  compliment  corning 
from  Mr.  Lincoln,  for  he  was  no  flatterer,  nor  disposed 
to  bestow  praise  where  it  was  undeserved.  Col.  Baker 
heartily  concurred  in  all  he  said,  and  between  those 
two  glorious  men  I  left  the  stand,  and  we  marched 
through  our  friends,  out  of  the  State  House,  who 
trooped  after  us,  evidently  anticipating  what  Lincoln 
and  Baker  had  suggested  to  me,  accompanying  us  to 
my  hotel;  but  the  anticipations  of  my  friends  were 
not  realized,  and  after  reaching  my  hotel,  and  receiv- 
ing three  more  hearty  cheers  from  the  multitude,  I 
made  my  bow  and  retired  to  my  room. 


250  LINDER'S  REMIJSISCESTCES. 

Now,  worthy  reader,  permit  rne  to  say  that  this  was 
one  of  the  proudest  days  of  my  life;  not  so  much  on 
account  of  the  applause  paid  me  by  the  multitude  as 
on  account  of  the  devoted  friendship  shown  by  Lin- 
coln and  Baker.  Dear  friends,  you  both  sleep  in 
bloody  graves — one  falling  by  a  shot  fired  by  a  miser- 
able assassin,  and  the  other  falling  at  Ball's  Bluff, 
pierced  with  many  wounds,  fighting  in  the  cause  of 
ths  Union.  Your  names  and  memory  are  embalmed 
in  the  hearts  of  your  countrymen,  and  to  your  memory 
history  will  erect  a  more  enduring  monument  than  all 
that  stone  or  marble  can  do.  My  heart  has,  does  and 
will  make  a  periodic  pilgrimage  to  your  graves  as  long 
as  my  life  shall  last  ! 

Col.  Baker,  or  rather  I  should  say  Gen.  Baker  —for 
that  was  the  office  he  filled  at  the  time  of  his  death- 
filled  high  places  in  the  Federal  Government  previous 
to  his  death  at  Ball's  Bluff.  He  was  Colonel,  and  com- 
manded a  regiment  in  the  Mexican  war  under  Gen. 
Scott — the  best  disciplined  and  best  trained  regi- 
ment in  the  whole  army — and  fought  with  hi  in  at  the 
battle  of  Cerro  Gordo,  and  clear  up  through  the  Valley 
of  Mexico  to  the  taking  of  the  city  of  Mexico,  the  an- 
cient city  of  the  Montezumas.  If  I  have  not  already 
stated  it  in  the  sketch  I  have  given  of  my  friend  Dick 
Oglesby,  I  will  here  state  what  I  believe  is  the  fact: 
that  he,  Oglesby,  was  a  lieutenant  in  Col.  Baker's 
regiment.  Col.  Baker  I  think,  after  his  return  from 
the  Mexican  war,  was  elected  a  member  of  Congress  to 
the  House  of  Representatives  from  what  -was  known  as 
the  Galena  district  of  Illinois,  when  it  was  believed 
that  no  Whig  could  be  elected  from  that  district.  He 


E.  D.  BAKER.  251 

afterwards  removed  to  the  State  of  Oregon,  and  was 
elected  by  the  legislature  of  that  State  to  the  United 
States  Senate  for  six  years.  Had  he  continued  in  civil 
life,  and  not  sought  military  honors,  he  might  have 
been  living  to-day;  but  seeking  that  kind  of  fame,  he 
fell  a  victim  to  his  ambition  at  Ball's  Bluff. 

Baker  was  one  of  the  most  eloquent  men  that  I  ever 
heard  speak  to  a  public  audience.  About  the  time 
when  the  question  was  being  agitated  before  Congress, 
whether  we  should  extend  our  territorial  limits  as 
against  the  British  government  in  Oregon,  he  advoca- 
ted that  claim,  and  I  heard  him  make  a  speech  before 
the  lobby  in  Springfield  while  the  legislature  was  in 
session,  in  which  he  said  "  there  was  not  an  inch  of 
ground,  however  barren  and  sterile  it  might  be — not 
one  inch  of  sandy  desert — that  he  would  consent  to 
yield  to  the  arrogant  and  grasping  pretensions  ot 
Great  Britain."  The  Whig  party  did  not  unanimously 
agree  with  him  at  that  time,  but  how  that  is  I  cannot 
say,  for  finally  Mr.  Benton,  Senator  from  Missouri, 
showed  clearly  in  the  body  of  which  he  was  a  mem- 
ber, that  our  c'.aim  did  not  extend  beyond  forty-nine 
degrees  north  latitude,  and  upon  that  line  the  two 
governments  finally  settled.  One  remark  made  by 
Col.  Baker  in  the  speech  to  which  I  have  before  allu- 
ded, which  I  have  left  out,  was,  he  "  would  not  con- 
sent to  give  her  an  inch  of  sand  that  glittered  in  the 
sunbeams,  that  did  not  clearly  belong  to  her." 

I  must  say  that  in  this  I  agreed  with  Col.  Baker. 

I  must  here  relate  an  anecdote  which  is 'told  of  Col. 
Baker,  going  to  show  his  great  vanity,  for  all  great 
men  are  more  or  less  vain,  but  I  must  confess  I  believe 


252  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

the  anecdote  a  fiction.  Col.  Baker  was  born  in  Eng- 
land and  brought  to  this  country  when  but  a  small 
babe,  and  the  story  runs  thus:  After  he  had  grown  to 
fame  and  distinction,  he  was  found  in  the  woods  seated 
on  a  log,  crying  and  sobbing  as  though  his  heart  would 
break.  A  friend  coming  unawares  upon 'him,  said  to 
him:  "My  God!  Baker,  what  is  the  matter?  Have  you 
lost  some  dear  friend  ? "  "  No,"  said  he,  but  I  was  born 
in  England  and  am  not  a  native  of  the  United  States; 
and  looking  over  the  Constitution  I  find  that  I  am 
forever  excluded  from  being  President  of  the  United 
States." 

He  was  certainly  a  very  vain  man ;  but  he  had  a 
right  to  be  so.  I  have  often  noticed  him  after  making 
one  of  his  finest  efforts,  go  around  the  crowd  to  catch 
what  it  might  say  of  his  speech.  He  had  more  of  this 
kind  of  vanity  than  any  man  I  ever  saw. 

He  was  an  excellent  lawyer,  and  I  have  seen  him  go 
into  causes  without  any  previous  preparation,  especially 
cases  in  chancery,  and  after  hearing  the  bill,  answer 
and  depositions  read,  would  pitch  into  the  cause,  and 
a  bystander  who  didn't  know  the  facts,  would  have 
supposed  that  he  had  been  familiar  with  the  case  and 
had  studied  it  for  months  before. 

At  this  point  I  bid  my  friend  Baker  farewell;  and 
as  he  has  gone  to  the  summer  land,  I  trust  I  shall 
meet  him  there,  with  all  the  rest  of  my  dear  departed 
friends. 


DANIEL  "W.  VOOKHEES.  253 


DANIEL  W.  YOOEHEES. 


1WILL  here  introduce  the  name  of  a  man  not 
of  our  State,  but  who  is  almost  one  of  us,  for 
he  has  practiced  law  up  and  down  the  Wabash 
country,  on  both  sides  of  that  river,  as  well  in  Illinois 
as  in  Indiana — I  mean  Dan.  Voorhees,  of  Terre  Haute, 
Indiana.  I  have  had  great  hesitation  about  giving  a 
sketch  of  his  career,  because  I  do  not  wish  to  re-publish 
what  has  heretofore  been  published  a  thousand  times 
in  reference  to  his  political  career,  his  speeches  in 
Congress  and  elsewhere. 

Dan  does  not  belong  to  Indiana  alone,  but  he 
belongs  to  the  nation.  He  is  emphatically  a  national 
character.  He  has  made  speeches  in  Congress  that 
would  do  honor  to  a  Burke,  a  Fox,  or  a  Lord  Chatham. 
I  have  sat  under  his  speeches  many  a  time  perfectly 
entranced  and  bewitched  by  his  eloquence.  I  really 
think  that  I  can  in  truth  say  that  I  never  heard  so  fine 
a  speaker.  I  can't  give  my  readers  a  better  description 
of  Dan's  eloquence  than  what  the  old  Ranger,  Gov. 
Reynolds,  said  of  Henry  Clay.  Being  called  upon  by 
us  younger  men  (who  knew  that  the  old  Ranger  had 
often  heard  Clay,  Webster  and  Calhonn  address  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States),  to  know  what  he  thought 
of  Mr.  Clay's  eloquence,  and  to  give  us  some  idea  of 


25i-  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

it.  "Well,"  said  he,  "gentlemen,  fancy  fifty  fiddles 
finely  played,  and  all  in  full  blast  at  the  same  time, 
and  you  have  only  reached  the  half-way  point  to  the 
enchantment  and  charm  produced  by  his  voice  and 
eloquence."  "But,"  said  one  of  our  number,  "  Gov. 
Reynolds,  you  certainly  overlooked  Mr.  Calhoun  and 
Daniel  "Webster."  "  JSTo  I  haven't,"  said  he;  "I  have 
heard  them  all  in  their  pride  and  power,  and  at  the 
summit  of  their  fame,  and  I  tell  you,  gentlemen,  set 
them  beside  Henry  Clay,  and  measure  them  with  him, 
and  they  would  strike  him  about  the  waistband  of  his 
breeches."  And  so  I  think  in  reference  to  the  modern 
orators  and  speakers  when  compared  with  Daniel  W. 
Voorhees,  for  I  am  free  to  confess  I  would  rather  hear 
him  speak  when  under  the  proper  inspiration  than 
listen  to  the  finest  band  of  music  that  ever  filled  the 
air  with  its  melodies. 

There  is  not  a  man  in  Europe  or  America  who  ever 
surpassed  Dan  Voorhees  in  the  powers  of  elocution. 
Now  I  don't  want  my  readers  to  understand  that  I 
mean  to  exalt  Dan  to  the  rank  of  a  great  statesman, 
or  philosopher;  I  only  mean  to  say  as  a  great  jury 
lawyer  and  popular  declairner  he  has  no  equal — and 
there  I  stop. 

Dan  is  a  convivial  soul.  He  studied  law  under  Ned 
Hannegan — a  fine  school  of  eloquence  it  was.  He  is 
still  a  young  man,  and  had  he  not  been  somewhat 
erratic  in  his  political  course,  might  have  had  a  fair 
chance  to  reach  the  Presidential  chair;  but  such  men 
never  reach  the  presidency.  Who  would  not  have 
thought  that  such  men  as  Mr.  Clay,  Webster  or  Cal- 
houn, would  have  been  elevated  to  the  presidency, 


DANIEL  "W.  YOOEHEES.  255 

when  such  men  as  Pierce  and  Polk  were  elevated  to 
that  position? 

I  am  not  writing  this  work  to  praise  any  man  or 
any  party,  but  to  deal  out  even-handed  justice  to  all 
men  and  all  parties.  I  am  sura  that  Dan  Yoorhees, 
with  myself,  has  sympathies  connected  with  the  South. 
I  love  the  South  and  the  Southern  people;  and  though 
I  live  in  the  cold  and  frozen  regions  of  the  north,  yet 
when  summer  dawns  upon  the  South,  my  soul  is  in 
the  first  leaves  of  her  roses;  and  when  they  send  forth 
their  fragrance,  it  is  the  poetry  of  my  soul  which  God 
in  his  omnipotence  has  planted  in  my  heart. 

There  was  a  mass  meeting  at  Covington,  Ind.,  when- 
Dan  was  running  against  a  very  small  fellow  by  the 
name  of  Wilson.  I  was  invited  by  Ned  Hannegan 
and  others  to  address  that  meeting.  I  accepted  the 
invitation.  It  was  a  meeting  almost  altogether  got 
up  for  me.  Such  was  the  great  vanity  of  Dan  Yoor- 
hees, being  himself  a  candidate  for  Congress,  that  he, 
on  the  call  of  but  a  few  friends,  took  the  stand  that 
was  intended  for  me,  and  commenced  in  his  verbose 
manner.  At  this  point  Hannegan  and  I  reached  the 
stand.  He,  Hannegan.  caught  Dan  by  the  sleeve  and 
pulled  him  back,  and  said:  "  "What  in  the  h — 1  are  you 
doing?  This  was  a  meeting  got  up,  not  for  you,  but 
for  Gen.  Linder."  Dan  wilted. 

I  don't  relate  this  to  the  prejudice  of  Yoorhees — 
neither  he  nor  I  have  the  qualities  to  make  a  president 
of  the  United  States.  It  is  true  I  should  like  to  see 
Dan  aJSeriator  in  Congress  from  Indiana,  and  I  trust 
the  day  will  come  when  he  will  reach  that  honor.  One 
thing  is  certain,  that  there  is  not  a  man  on  earth  who 


256  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

charmed  me  more  in  his  speeches  than  Dan  Yoorhees. 
lie  looks  the  orator,  acts  the  orator,  and  is  the  orator. 
He  is  over  six  feet  high — the  finest  physical  form  that 
ever  rose  to  address  an  audience.  To  say  he  was  an 
Adonis,  is  too  mean  and  effeminate  a  phrase  to  express 
the  full  idea  I  mean  to  convey,  for  he  had  all  the 
beauty  and  loveliness  of  woman  combined-with  the 
strength  and  vigor  of  man.  It  is  impossible  to  con- 
ceive, by  those  who  have  never  heard  Dan  Voorhees, 
the  force  of  his  oratorical  powers.  Even  Governor 
Reynolds  has  not  given  a  full  idea  of  the  powers  of 
oratory  in  his  fifty-fiddle  comparison  of  Mr.  Clay,  so 
far  as  the  eloquence  of  Dan  Voorhees  is  concerned. 
Dan  was  many  years  a  member  of  the  lower  House 
of  Congress,  and  his  speeches  therein  have  made  for 
him  a  world-wide  reputation  and  fame;  and  I  trust 
that  nothing  I  have  said  will  detract  from  his  claims 
to  a  higher  place.  Merciful  God!  What  are  the 
claims  or  talents  that  shall  entitle  a  man  to  the  Presi- 
dency of  the  United  States?  How  long  are  we  to  be 
governed  by  caucuses?  When  shall  we  cease  to  be 
controlled  by  them?  I  think  I  see  the  dav  coming' 

«/  •/  CJ 

when  we  shall  be  controlled  by  a  venal  power  influ- 
enced by  money,  that  will  not  only  control  our  elections 
but  our  legislation.  May  God  forbid  such  a  result! 
The  present  times  show  the  most  corrupt  state  of  things 
in  political  high  places  that  has  ever  been  known. 

If  Dan  wishes  to  place  himself  on  the  record  prop- 
erly, he  has  got  to  shape  his  course  anew.  He  has  not 
got  to  watch  where  the  wind  blows,  but  he  must  shape 
his  course  to  the  point  of  the  compass  where  the  wind 
ought  to  blow. 


DANIEL  "W.  YOOEHEES.  257 

Dan  Yoorhees  is  still  in  active  life — in  the  practice 
of  his  profession,  the  law — and  is  sought  for  from 
every  quarter  to  defend  criminals  in  the  most  danger- 
ous class  of  cases;  and  also  to  prosecute  where  not 
so  employed. 

Dan  Yoorhees  has  a  reputation  that  needs  nothing 
from  rny  pen  to  spread  it  wider  than  it  is  already 
extended.  He  is  a  man  so  well  known  and  so  fully 
appreciated  that  it  would  be  supererogation  to  say 
more  than  I  have  already  said. 


17 


258  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JOSIAH  LAMBOEI^. 


]  DON'T  know  but  that  it  would  be  better  to 
put  no  name  in  these  memoirs  save  those  that 
have  been  bright  and  shining  lights  of  honor 
and  integrity,  yet  I  feel  disposed  to  make  one  excep- 
tion, and  that  is  Josiah  Lamborn,  who  was  Attorney- 
General  of  the  State  some  eight  or  ten  years  after  I 
filled  that  office.  I  became  acquainted  witli  him  in 
1836  and  '37.  He  was  attending  the  Supreme  Court 
at  Vandalia  during  that  session  of  the  legislature. 
He  was  a  very  remarkable  man.  Intellectually,  I 
know  no  man  of  his  day  who  was  his  superior.  He 
was  considered  by  all  the  lawyers  who  knew  him  as  a 
man  of  the  tersest  logic.  He  could  see  the  point  in  a 
case  as  clear  as  any  lawyer  I  ever  knew,  and  could  elu- 
cidate it  as  ably,  never  using  a  word  too  much  or  one 
too  few.  He  was  exceedingly  happy  in  his  conceptions, 
and  always  traveled  the  shortest  route  to  reach  his  con- 
clusions. He  was  a  terror  to  his  legal  opponents,  espe- 
cially those  diffusive,  wordy  lawyers  who  had  more 
words  than  arguments.  I  heard  Judge  Smith,  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  say  that  he  knew  of  no  lawyer  who 
was  his  equal  in  strength  and  force  of  argument. 

Lamborn  was  a  native  of  Kentucky,  born  in  "Wash- 
ington county  of  that  state.     He  had  received  a  liberal 


JOSIAH  LAMBORN.  259 

education  and  graduated  either  at  Danville  or  Transyl- 
vania University.  He  possessed  high  social  qualities, 
and  his  conversational  powers  were  of  the  very  highest 
order,  and  when  this  is  said  I  am  sorry  to  say  it  is  all  I 
can  mention  in  his  praise.  He  was  wholly  destitute  of 
principle,  and  shamelessly  took  bribes  from  criminals 
prosecuted  under  his  administration.  I  know  myself 
of  his  having  dismissed  forty  or  fifty  indictments  at  the 
Shelby  ville  Court,  and  openly  displayed  the  money  he 
had  received  from  defendants.  He  showed  me  a  roll 
of  bills  amounting  to  six  or  eight  hundred  dollars, 
-which  he  acknowledged  he  had  received  from  them — 
the  fruits  of  his  maladministration  of  his  office  as  Attor- 
ney-General of  the  State.  He  grew  worse  and  worse 
towards  the  latter  end  of  his  life,  and  finally  threw 
himself  entirely  away,  consorting  with  gamblers  and 
wasting  his  substance  upon  them.  He  gave  him- 
self up  to  intemperance,  to  the  neglect  of  his  wife 
and  child,  whom  he  abandoned,  and  finally  died  mis- 
erably at  Whitehall,  Green  county,  Ills. 

It  is  painful  to  dwell  upon  a  character  like  this;  but 
I  introduce  him  for  the  purpose  of  holding  him  up  as 
a  beacon-light  and  warning  to  the  rising  generation  of 
young  lawyers,  hoping  that  Illinois  will  never  afford 
another  example  of  a  man. of  such  shining  and  splen- 
did talents  associated  with  such  utter  depravity.  I 
leave  him  with  his  God,  upon  whose  mercies  we  shall 
all  have  to  rely  in  the  final  settlement  of  our  accounts; 
and  may  the  Lord  have  mercy  upon  his  soul. 


260  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


THEOPHILITS  W.  SMITH. 


I  have  alhided  to  Judge  Theophilus  "W. 
Smith  in  my  last  sketch,  I  will  here  intro- 
duce him  to  my  readers.  He  was  on  the 
bench  of  the  Supreme  Court  when  I  came  to  the  State* 
of  Illinois.  At  the  legislative  .session  of  1836  and 
1837,  to  which  I  have  so  often  alluded,  he  boarded  at 
the  same  private  house  with  my  wife  and  self,  the 
Supreme  Court  being  then  in  session.  Judge  Smith 
was  a  native  of  New  York.  He  was  a  man  of  very 
ardent  temperament.  He  came  to  this  State  I  think 
when  it  was  yet  a  territory.  He  was  a  co temporary 
of  old  Governor  Ninnian  Edwards,  and  as  far  as  I 
gathered  the  history  of  their  relations,  they  were  rivals 
and  enemies,  and  had  a  terrible,  personal  rencounter 
on  one  occasion,  Judge  Smith  drawing  a  pistol  on  Gov. 
Edwards;  the  latter  snatched  it  out  of  his  hand,  and 
struck  Judge  Smith  a  blow  which  broke  his  jaw,  and 
left  upon  his  face  a  very  ugly  scar. 

Judge  Smith  was  esteemed  by  most  of  the  lawyers 
who  practiced  in  the  Supreme  Court  at  that  time,  as 
one  of  the  most  talented  of  the  four  judges  who  pre- 
sided on  that  bench.  He  was  very  warmly  attached 
to  me,  and  I  very  cordially  reciprocated  the  attach- 
ment. I  had  been  a  member  of  the  legislature  some 


THEOPUILUS  "W.  SMITH.  261 

two  or  three  weeks  before  taking  any  active  part  in  its 
proceedings,  when  one  night  the  judge  asked  me  if  I 
would  not  like  to  be  a  great  man.  I  told  him  I  cer- 
tainly would  not  object  to  be  such.  "  Well,"  said  he, 
"  I  will  put  you  on  the  high  road  to  become  such,  if 
you  will  follow  my  advice  a:id  instructions."  "Well," 
said  I,  let  me  hear  them,  and  if  I  see  no  objections  I 
will  do  so." 

He  then  sat  down  and  drew  up  a  string  of  resolu- 
tions calling  for  an  investigation  into  the  affairs  of 
the  State  Bank  of  Illinois,  which  he  said  was  a  most 
rascally  institution,  which  resorntions  required  them 
to  show  how  they  had  distributed  their  stock,  and 
poking  a  great  many  uncomfortable  questions  at  them. 
I  introduced  these  resolutions,  and  they  produced  a 
most  excited  debate,  which  lasted  for  some  two  or  three 
weeks.  They  fell  like  a  bombshell  in  the  House,  and 
at  the  end  of  that  debate  we  carried  the  resolutions  by 
a  large  majority. 

It  was  in  that  debate  that  I  won  most  of  my  laurels 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  at  that  session,  and 
the  popularity  which  made  me  Attorney-General  of 
the  State.  During  all  this  debate  Judge  Smith  stood 
behind  me,  furnishing  me  with  facts  and  arguments 
and  keeping  me  thoroughly  posted. 

He  was  a  most  invaluable  friend  of  mine,  and  stood 
by  me  in  all  my  difficulties.  Our  intercourse  was  of 
the  most  pleasant  and  agreeable  kind.  He  visited  me 
and  my  family  after  we  had  removed  to  the  city  of 
Alton.  Our  friendship  continued  to  the  last  day  of 
his  life. 

His  opinions  as  one  of  the  Supreme  Judges  of  the 


262  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

State,  occupy  a  considerable  portion  of  Scammon's 
Reports,  and  I  think  will  compare  favorably  for  abil- 
ity, with  those  of  any  of  our  Supreme  Judges  since 
the  foundation  of  that  Court. 

I  do  not  remember  the  year  when  he  died,  but  it 
has  been  a  considerable  time  since. 

Judge  Smith  wTas  the  father-in-law  of  the  late  Judge 
Jesse  B.  Thomas,  and  grandfather  to  the  present  Rev. 
Jesse  B.  Thomas,  one  of  the  most  distinguished  and 
devout  Baptist  preachers  in  the  city  of  Chicago.  He 
was  also  father-in-law  to  our  wealthy  fellow  citizen, 
Dr.  Boone. 

He  was  a  man  of.  eminently  social  qualities — devoted 
to  his  friends  and  bitter  toward  his  enemies.  In  his 
early  life  he  was  a  sailor,  and  had  been  in  all  the  ports 
of  the  civilized  world.  Knowing  that  he  had  been  a 
considerable  ladies'  man,  I  once  asked  him  what  nation 
had  produced  the  most  virtuous  women.  He  answered 
without  hesitation,  "  Ireland,  sir."  He  gave  me  many 
interesting  descriptions  of  the  people  of  the  different 
ports  where  he  had  visited.  I  have  passed  many 
agreeable  hours  in  Judge  Smith's  society. 

I  have  understood  that  General  Semple  courted  one 
of  his  daughters,  who  gave  him  the  mitten,  which 
made  him  a  bitter  enemy  of  Judge  Smith's  for  life. 
I  will  relate  a  little  circumstance  that  I  heard  from 
the  lawyers  who  practiced  before  Judge  Smith  when 
he  was  Circuit  Judge.  It  happened  at  Hillsbovongh. 
Gen.  Semple  and  another  lawyer,  who  were  trying  a 
case  in  Smith's  court,  got  into  a  fight;  and  Smith,  not 
having  much  love  or  respect  for  either  of  them,  ordered 
the  sheriff  to  adjourn  court  for  an  hour,  and  got  up 


TIIEOPHILUS  W.  SMITH.  263 

and  deliberately  went  out  of  tlie  court  Louse,  and  left 
them  fighting,  Sample  chasing  his  antagonist,  John 
S.  Great-house,  a  small  man,  around  a  table.  Some 
lawyer  stepped  up  to  Judge  Smith,  and  asked  him 
why  he  had  not  fined  them.  Smith  answered  that  it 
was  a  case  for  the  justice's  court,  and  that  his  court, 
did  not  take  cognizance  of  so  small  offenders. 

Judge  Smith  delivered  the  opinion  of  the  Supreme 
Court  in  the  case  of  Beaubien  against  the  United 
States,  involving  the  title  to  the  old  Fort  Dearborn 
property  in  Chicago.  The  opinion  was  given  in  favor 
of  Beaubien.  It  was  written  out  at  considerable 
length  and  with  much  ability.  Beaubien  had  laid 
out  the  ground  into  town  lots,  and  had  made  deeds  of 
gift  to  the  different  children  of  the  Judges  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  of  a  considerable  number  of  these 
lots.  The  court  then  consisted  of  Wilson,  Brown, 
Lockwood  and  Smith.  Wilson  and  Lockwood  had  too 
much  modesty  to  sit  in  the  case,  inasmuch  as  their 
children  were  interested  parties,  but  Smith  and  Brown 
had  no  such  scruples.  The  case  went  up  to  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  where  the  opin- 
ion of  our  State  Court  was  reversed.  I  -understand 
however  that  Beaubien  finally  compromised  with  the 
United  States,  and  the  Government  gave  him  a  hand- 
some portion  of  this  property. 

Judge  Smith  was  widely  known  to  the  lawyers  of 
this  State,  and  by  most  of  them  regarded  as  the  most 
talented  member  of  the  bench.  Of  that,  however,  L 
have  my  doubts. 


264  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


SAMUEL  D.  LOOKWOOD. 


1UDGE  SAMUEL  D.  LOCKWOOD  will  be 
the  next  name  I  shall  take  up.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois 
when  I  came  to  the  State,  and  continued  to  be  such  for 
many  years.  He  had  been  Attorney-General  prior 
to  that  time.  He  was  a  sound  lawyer,  a  scholar,  a 
gentleman,  and  an  honest  man.  He  lived  to  an  ex- 
treme old  age,  and  died  a  year  or  so  ago  at  Batavia,  111. 
All  lawyers  should  feel  great  reverence  and  venera- 
.  tion  for  his  name,  for  he  was  an  ornament  to  the 
court  and  bar.  He  was  brought  up  and  educated  in. 
the  State  of  New  York.  I  met  him  during  the  civil 
war,  when  I  was  making  speeches  to  raise  troops  to  fill 
the  ranks  of  our  gallant  volunteers.  The  old  man 
seemed  delighted  at  finding  me  engaged  in  this 
patriotic  work. 

Judge  Lockwood  was  not  an  exceedingly  ambitious 
man.  He  pursued  the  even  and  noiseless  tenor  of  his 
way,  making  no  enemies,  but  a  host  of  friends.  He 
was  a  religious  man,  and  was  respected  by  all  who 
knew  him.  His  opinions,  which  will  be  found  in  our 
earlier  reports,  are  not  lengthy,  but  they  are  pithy  and 
to  the  point,  and  there  is  not  one  of  them  which  is 
not  good  lawr  at  this  day.  No  man  belonging  to  the 
judiciary  and  bar  is  better  entitled  to  a  place  in  these 


SAMUEL  T>.  LOCKWOOD. 


265 


memoirs  than  Judge  Lockwood.  He  is  well  worthy 
the  imitation  of  all  the  younger  members  of  the  bar, 
for  he  lived  and  died  with  clean  hands,  and  left  a 
name  and  character  without  spot  or  blemish.  Judge 
Lockwood,  I  bid  you  adieu. 


266  LINDEE'S  REMINISCENCES. 


B.  WEBB. 


ORTTIY  reader,  I  will  introduce  to  yon  a 
name  for  which  I  feel  the  profoundest  respect 
— Edwin  B.  Webb,  of  Carmi,  White  county, 
Illinois,  commonly  known  amongst  us  lawyers  as  "Bat. 
'  Webb."  He  was  one  of  the  members  of  the  legisla- 
ture in  1836  and  '37. 

He  was  a  small  man,  but  of  elegant  and  courtly 
manners,  rather  aristocratic,  being  descended  from  a 
good  old  Virginia  family.  He  himself  was  born  in 
Fayette  county,  Kentucky.  He  was  decently  educated, 
and  for  our  day  and  time  was  what  might  be  called  a 
first-class  lawyer.  He  Was  a  son  of  George  Webb,  who 
was  a  compeer  of  Henry  Clay's. 

There  lived  in  Carmi  during  the  years  I  practiced 
law  in  that  county,  a  coterie  of  elegant  gentlemen, 
with  their  families,  composed  of  Judge  Wilson,  Col. 
Davidson,  Sam.  Ready,  the  Hon.  John  M.  Robinson, 
Geo.  Webb,  and  the  subject  of  this  sketch,  who  invar- 
iably flung  open  their  doors  to  the  judge  and  bar  dur-. 
ing  our  sojourn  there  at  the  various  terms  of  the  court; 
and  they  always  extended  to  us  a  bright  and  elegant 
hospitality,  and  none  of  them  dispensed  it  more  cor- 
dially or  made  his  guests  more  welcome  than  the  sub- 
ject of  this  sketch — Edwin  B.  Webb. 


EDWIN  B.  WEBB.  267 

My  acquaintance  with  him  was  long,  and  our  friend- 
ship and  attachment  warm  to  the  last  day  of  his  life. 
I  hardly  ever  knew  a  man  of  more  refined  and  elegant 
manners  than  my  old  friend,  Bat.  Webb. 

He  was  at  one  time  run  for  governor  of  this  State 
by  the  Whig  party,  but  failed  to  secure  the  election. 
He  was  the  very  pink  of  honesty  and  honor.  I  never 
knew  him  to  do  a  mean  action,  or  to  utter  a  low  or 
mean  sentiment.  He  always  came  into  court  with  his 
cases  well  prepared,  and  occasionally  when  excited 
he  could  become  really  eloquent,  and  he  was  always 
argumentative.  He  understood  the  science  of  plead- 
ing well,  as  all  his  brother  lawyers  who  knew  him  can 
testify.  He  was  always  good  natured,  kind  and  gen- 
tlemanly. He  was  a  devoted  friend  to  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, which  friendship  Lincoln  returned  with  interest. 
He  was  a  staunch  Whig,  and  had  an  utter  detestation 
for  demagogues. 

I  have  understood  that  Bat.  suffered  much  in  his 
last  illness.  He  died  of  what  physicians  call  gastritis. 
He  was  not  an  old  man  at  the  time  of  his  demise;  wTas 
a  widower,  and  left  one  child.  And  I  wish  here  to 
say  in  conclusion,  that  no  man  has  ever  left  a  brighter 
name  or  more  spotless  reputation;  no  man  ever  died 
having  fewer  enemies  or  more  friends. 


268  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JOHN  M. 


1HE  next  name  which  I  shall  introduce  to  the 
reader  is  that  of  John  M.  Robinson,  the  broth- 
er-in-law of  Edwin  B.  Webb,  the  last  gentle- 
man about  whom  I  have  written.  He  was  Senator  in 
Congress  from  this  State  when  I  came  here,  and  he 
served  some  eleven  or  twelve  years  in  that  capacity. 
My  acquaintance  witli  Mr.  Robinson  commenced  some 
eight  or  ten  years  after  my  advent  to  this  State.  He 
and  Mr.  Webb  married  two  sisters,  the  daughters  of 
old  man  Radcliffe,  the  clerk  of  the  Circuit  Court  of 
White  county,  and  the  proprietor  of  the  hotel  where 
we  all  stopped — a  large  and  spacious  brick  house,  too 
large  indeed  for  a  town  no  larger  than  Carmi.  He 
was  an  old  Kentuckian,  and  generally  bored  with  a 
tolerably  big  auger. 

John  M.  Robinson  was  one  of  the  finest  looking 
men  I  ever  saw — over  six  feet  high,  and  intellectually, 
and  every  other  way,  one  of  the  noblest  specimens  of 
the  genus  homo. 

He  conceived  a  warm  attachment  and  admiration 
for  me  at  our  first  acquaintance,  which  I  fully  returned. 
No  man  with  whom  I  ever  became  acquainted  ever 
excited  in  my  breast  a  warmer  love  and  friendship. 

After  he  left  Congress  he  did  not  resume  his  prac- 


JOHN  M.  ROBINSON.  269 

tice  on  his  old  circuit,  which  was  the  one  in  which  I 
practiced  the  greater  part  of  my  life;  to  which  my 
memory  now  turns  with  a  fondness  equal  to  that  of 
some  exiled  Irishman  to  his  green  and  emerald  isle. 
Although  General  Robinson  did  not  resume  his  prac- 
tice after  his  return  home,  yet  he  traveled  around  the 
circuit  with  the  judge  and  us  lawyers  for  the  purpose 
of  seeing  his  old  friends  whom  death  had  not  snatched 
u.vay;  and  he  resorted  to  a  very  ingenious  method  of 
getting  to  see  them.  He  got  the  State's  Attorney  to 
have  subposnas  issued  and  served  upon  them  by  the 
Sheriif  to  appear  as  witnesses  before  the  grand  jury; 
they  came,  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  were  not  a 
little  amazed  to  find  that  their  testimony  was  not 
needed,  but  that  their  old  friend  Robinson  had 
brought  them  there,  that  he  might  once  more  take 
them  by  the  hand  and  renew  the  recollections  of  past 
years;  and  none  of  them  were  offended  at  this,  for 
no  one  ever  knew  General  Robinson  that  did  not  love 
him.  It  was  actually  an  interesting  spectacle  to  see 
him  and  his  old  friends  meet.  What  a  glorious  thing 
it  is  for  a  man  to  have  lived  such  a  life  and  to  have 
so  impressed  himself  upon  his  acquaintances  as  Gen- 
eral Robinson  had,  and  after  many  years  of  separation 
to  meet  them,  and  to  be  taken  to  their  hearts"  and 
bosoms.  I  have  actually  seen  his  old  friends  shed 
tears  of  joy  at  meeting  with  him.  Mrs.  Robinson,  his 
wife,  a  very  handsome,  refined  and  cultivated  lady, 
literally  worshiped  him,  as  well  she  might. 

General  Robinson  never  went  back  into  political 
life  after  leaving  the  Senate  of  the  United  States;  but 
after  the  legislature  of  1842  reorganized  our  judicial 


270  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

system,  increasing  the  number  of  supreme  judges  from 
four  to  nine,  and  assigning  to  each  of  them  circuit 
court  duties,  the  legislature  elected  General  Robin- 
son one  of  those  judges,  and  assigned  him  a  northern 
circuit,  embracing  Ottawa,  in  which  to  perform  the 
duties  of  a  circuit  court  judge;  and  it  is  melancholy 
to  think  that,  he  died  on  his  first  trip  around  that  cir- 
cuit, far  away  from  his  home,  wife,  children  and  home 
friends,  though  he  had  the  friendship  and  kind  atten- 
tion of  the  lawyers  practicing  before  him  on  that  cir- 
cuit, and  lacked  for  nothing  that  assiduous  love  and 
friendship  could  procure.  New  friends  attended  him 
in  his  illness,  closed  his  eyes  and  consigned  him  to 
his  last  resting  place,  and  buried  him  with  the  most 
distinguished  honors. 

O 

John  M.  Robinson  had  some  faults,  but  none  of 
them  would  bear  the  name  of  vices,  for  he  was  as  pure 
as  thesnowflakes  that  fall  from  heaven,  or  the  pure  and 
limpid  mountain  rivulet  whose  waters  leap  from  rock 
to  rock,  and  run  dancing  in  the  sunbeams  with  whis- 
pering melody,  to  the  ocean. 

General  Robinson  was  a  native  of  Kentucky,  and 
James  F.  Robinson,  a  brother  of  his,  was  a  most  dis- 
tinguished and  eminent  lawyer,  and  at  one  time  Gov- 
ernor of  Kentucky. 

I  know  nothing  more  in  reference  to  General  Rob- 
inson that  ought  to  be  here  recorded.  I  trust  that 
when  I  am  done  with  time  and  time's  things,  that  I 
may  meet  him  again  in  another  form  of  existence, 
where  pain,  disease  and  poverty  cannot  reach  us,  and 
where  the  "  weary  are  at  rest." 

Dear  reader,  I  have  gathered  up  the  names  of  my  early 


JOHN  M.  EOBINSON.  271 

acquaintances  in  Southern  Illinois,  as  far  as  I  now  can 
recollect;  but  if  there  are  any  others  that  I  have  over- 
looked that  deserve  a  place  here,  'and  their  names 
should  occur  to  me  as  I  proceed  with  these  reminiscen- 
ces, I  shall  riot  fail  to  go  back  and  pick  them  up  and 
do  full  justice  to  their7  memories.  Dear  reader,  if  you 
think  that  the  writing  up  of  these  recollections  is  a 
pleasant  undertaking,  when  }rou  are  my  age  go  to  the 
graveyard  and  read  from  the  tombstones  there  the 
names  of  your  departed  friends,  and  then  you  will  know 
something  of  the  feelings  that  I  have  in  reviewing  the 
past.  It  is  true  that  it  is  pleasant  to  me  to  embalm 
and  commemorate  the  virtues  of  my  friends,  but  oh, 
how  sad  to  reflect  that  they  are  gone,  and  gone  for- 
ever! 'As  Job  has  said  :  "  Man  that  is  born  of  a  woman 
is  of  few  days  and  full  of  trouble.  He  cometh  forth 
like  a  flower,  and  is  cut  down;  he  fleeth  also  as  a 
shadow,  and  continueth  not."  My  readers  will  know, 
and  I  trust  will  appreciate,  the  fact  that  these  memoirs 
are  not  written  particularly  to  catch  the  eyes  of  the 
living,  for  most  of  those  of  whom  I  have  written  have 

O1 

passed  away  from  earth  forever. 


272  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


"WM.  H.  DAYIDSOK 


HE  next  name  which  I  propose  to  take  up  is 
Wm.  H.  Davidson,  an  old  and  departed  friend, 
the  brother  to  Mrs.  Wilson,  the  wife  of  Chief 
Justice  Win.  Wilson.  As  I  have  before  said,  he  lived 
in  Carmi.  He  was  a  Virginian  by  birth,  and  was  in 
the  legislature  of  1836  and  '37;  a  member  of  the  Sen- 
ate from  the  White  county  senatorial  district,  and  was 
elected  speaker  of  that  body  over  John  D.  Whiteside, 
of  Monroe  county,  Illinois,  the  lieutenant-governor 
having  died  or  resigned. 

I  think  that  Davidson  was  the  handsomest  man  I 
ever  saw — a  perfect  gentleman  of  the  old  Virginia 
school — refined,  cultivated  and  wealthy.  He  was  bred 
to  the  law  but  became  a  merchant,  and  prospered  as 
such.  He  and  his  excellent  lady  dispensed  the  hospi- 
talities of  their  elegant  home  in  a  manner  which 
charmed  and  warmed  the  hearts  of  their  guests,  of 
which  hospitality  I  have  often  partaken  when  attend- 
ing court  at  Carmi. 

I  have  nothing  very  particular  to  record  of  David- 
son except  that  he  was  widely  and  favorably  known 
throughout  the  State  of  Illinois.  He  made  a  fortune 
in  the  retail  business,  and  with  a  capital  of  some  fifty 
thousand  dollars  in  cash,  he  removed  from  Carmi  to 


WILLIAM  II.  DAVIDSON. 


Louisville,  Ky.,  where  he  embarked  his  whole  capital 
in  the  wholesale  mercantile  business,  and  after  having 
prospered  and  added  greatly  to  his  fortune,  he  finally 
died  there. 

I  have  often  met  Colonel  Davidson  at  Springfield, 
Illinois.  We  were  warm  personal  friends,  and  I  am 
happy  to  have  the  opportunity  of  speaking  of  his  hos- 
pitality, urbanity  and  gentlemanly  qualities  in  these 
mv  humble  memoirs. 


18 


274  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


OLIVER   L.  DAYIS. 


TIE  next  name  that  I  shall  introduce  will  be 
that  of  a  living  man — Judge  Oliver  L.  Davis, 
of  Danville,  Illinois,  who  is  now  the  worthy 
judge  in  that  judicial  district.  Judge  Davis  is  a  na- 
tive of  New  York,  but  he  studied  law  in  Danville, 
under  Judge  Samuel  McRoberts.  I  have  known  him 
for  a  long  time.  We  served  in  the  legislature  together 
in  1846,  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  As  I  have 
before  stated,  he  was  associated  with  Lincoln  and  my- 
self in  the  great  slander  suit  of  Fithian  against  Cassi- 
day;  in  fact,  he  was  the  first  counsel  employed,  and 
brought  the  suit. 

He  has  been  twice  elected  circuit  judge.  He  is  a 
profound  lawyer,  a  prompt  and  most  excellent  judge. 
I  have  not  very  much  to  say  about  Judge  Davis,  but 
what  little  I  have  is  good.  He  has  built  up  for  him- 
self a  name  and  fame  in  theWabash  country  of  a  very 
creditable  and  enviable  character. 

Judge  Davis  is  but  little  if  any  past  the  prime  of 
life,  and  possessing  a  vigorous  constitution  and  being 
a  man  of  good  habits,  bids  fair  to  yet  live  many  years, 
and  to  attain  to  honors  higher  than  any  he  has  yet 
reached.  He  has  the  reputation  of  being  an  honest 
and  trustworthy  man  and  lawyer — a  reputation  which 


OLIVER  L.  DAVIS.  275 

he  well  merits.  He  was  a  candidate  for  Supreme 
Judge  at  one  time,  and  defeated,  which  I  think  was 
unjust,  believing  as  I  do  that  he  was  a  man  of  much 
higher  legal  attainments  than  his  competitor. 

Judge  Davis  has  the  well-deserved  reputation  of 
being  a  kind,  warm  friend,  a  good  neighbor  and  a 
charitable  man,  and  very  kind  to  the  younger  mem- 
bers of  the  bar  who  practice  in  his  court. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  Judge  Davis  deserves  a  much 
fuller  notice  than  I  have  been  able  to  give  him,  for  the 
reason  that  I  have  mainly  lost  sight  of  him  for  some 
sixteen  years  or  more;  but  some  future  chronicler  will 
do  him  full  justice,  and  fill  up  the  meagre  skeleton  of 
mine.  In  conclusion  I  wish  to  say  that  I  have  the 
highest  respect,  warmest  regard  and  utmost  friendship 
for  his  Honor,  Oliver  L.  Davis. 


276  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


ADAM  W.   SHYDER 


|EAI)ER,  I  shall  next  present  to  yon  the  name 
of  a  very  distinguished  man.  I  mean  Adam 
W.  Snyder,  of  Belleville,  Illinois.  He  died,  I 
think,  in  the  year  1842.  He  was  the  nominee  of  the 
Democratic  party  for  Governor  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  which  occurred  so  short  a  time  before  the 
election  that  there  was  not  time  to  call  another  con- 
vention. So  the  Democratic  papers,  by  a  sort  of  com- 
mon consent,  and  the  Democratic  Central  Committee, 
presented  the  name  of  Thomas  Ford,  who  was  elected 
over  Duncan,  as  I  have  before  stated,  by  a  majority 
of  8,313. 

My  acquaintance  with  Adam  Snyder  commenced  in 
1837,  at  the  Belleville  Circuit  Court,  St.  Clair  county, 
Illinois.  He  was  a  most  elegant  gentleman,  and  was 
the  only  man  that  ever  beat  old  Governor  Reynolds 
for  Congress,  to  which  position  he  had  been  elected 
some  two  or  three  times  before  I  made  his  acquaintance 
at  Belleville.  The  reader  will  remember  that  at  that 
time  I  was  Attorney-General  of  the  State,  and  it  was 
upon  that  occasion,  as  I  have  before  stated,  that  Snyder 
placed  under  my  quasi-guardianship  our  friend  Gus- 
tavus  ICoerner,  and  if  I  remember  now  correctly,  Sny- 
der traveled  with  us  on  the  circuit  as  far  down  as  old 
Kaskaskia.  Our  social  intercourse  was  of  the  most 


ADAM  W.  SNYDEK.  277. 

intimate  and  delightful  character.  I  never  knew  a 
man  possessing  higher  colloquial  and  conversational 
powers.  He  was  never  at  a  loss  for  a  word  or  idea. 
Besides  being  a  ripe  English  scholar,  he  spoke  the 
French  and  German  languages  with  equal  fluency,  as 
he  did  that  of  his  own  native  vernacular.  From  Belle- 
ville down  to  Kaskaskia  there  were  a  vast  number  of 
French  and  Germans.  Snyder  told  me  of  a  very 
amusing  occurrence  which  took  place  between  him 
and  a  St.  Louis  la  er,  who  came  over  to  St  Clair 
county  to  try  a  case  of  the  right  of  property.  He 
told  me  that  about  one-half  the  jury  were  French,  and 
nearly  the  other  half  Germans.  There  were  perhaps 
two  or  three  native  Americans  on  the  jury.  He  said 
after  he  had  addressed  the  jury  in  the  English  language 
sufficiently,  as  he  thought,  to  satisfy  the  Americans 
that  were  on  the  jury,  he  then  for  about  half  an  hour 
addressed  them,  in  French,  and  then  for  another  halt 
hour  in  German.  His  opponent,  who  could  neither 
speak  nor  understand  a  word  of  either  French  or 
German,  kept  all  the  while  objecting  to  that  mode  of 
argument.  He  tried  to  have  Snyder  stopped,  but  he 
went  on  to  the  end  of  his  speech,  "  and  at  the  end  of 
my  speech,"  said  Suyder,  "  he  begged  me  to  translate 
into  English  what  I  had  said  to  the  jury  in  German 
and  French.  I  told  him  I  would  gladly  do  so,  but 
was  pressed  for  time,  and  politely  declined  to  accom- 
modate him.  There  is  no  need  of  telling  you,  Linder, 
that  I  beat  him." 

I  never  enjoyed  a  richer  treat  than  the  society  and 
conversation  of  Adam  Snyder.  He  was  the  nephew 
of  old  Governor  Snyder,  of  Pennsylvania.  The  two 


278  LINDEE'S  REMINISCENCES. 

or  three  terms  that  he  served  in  Congress  after  having 
beaten  old  Governor  Reynolds,  he  gained  considerable 
distinction  by  his  speeches  in  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives. It  was  through  his  influence  in  1840-41,  he 
being  a  member  of  the  Illinois  Senate,  that  the  judicial 
system  was  revised  and  five  additional  Supreme  Judges 
added  to  their  number. 

Had  Snyder  lived  he  certainly  would  have  been  Gov- 
ernor beyond  all  doubt,  for  he  was  decidedly  the  most 
popular  Democrat  in  the  State  of  Illinois. 

I  do  not  know  what  notice  Governor  Ford  has  taken 
of  Adam  Sn}7der  in  his  history  of  Illinois.  I  would 
gladly  devote  a  larger  space  to  him  in  these  memoirs 
if  I  was  able  to  do  so,  but  our  personal  acquaintance 
was  of  short  duration,  and  my  knowledge  of  him  other- 
wise not  very  extensive. 

I  will  say  here  that  his  son,  the  Hon.  Wm.  Snyder, 
is  judge  of  the  Circuit  Court,  including  Belleville,  St. 
Clair  county,  Illinois.  He  has  inherited  largely  his 
father's  genius  and  talents,  and  may  he  long  live  and 
prosper  and  hand  down  the  name  of  Snyder  to  future 
generations. 

I  will  now  take  my  leave  of  my  old  friend  Adam 
Synder. 


"W".  EDWARDS.  270 


W.  EDWARDS. 


!  INI  AN  W.  EDWARDS  shall  have  the  next 
place  in  these  recollections.  He  was  the  son 
of  old  Governor  Ninian  Edwards,  to  whom  I 
have  already  alluded  in  writing  of  my  old  friend  Win. 
Kinney,  of  Belleville,  Illinois.  Ninian  W.  Edwards 
the  younger,  was  the  brother-in-law  of  our  late  lamented 
and  departed  President  of  the  United  States,  Abraham 
Lincoln,  each  of  whom  married  a  Miss  Todd,  sisters, 
who  belonged  to  one  of  the  first  families  of  Kentucky. 
He  was  one  of  the  members  of  the  lower  House  of 
tlie  Illinois  Legislature  of  1836  and  1837,  to  which  I 
have  so  often  referred.  He  was  from  Sanjnimon 

O 

county,  and  was  one  of  those  called  the  "  long  nine," 
Sangamon  having  nine  representatives  in  that  body, 
not  one  of  whom  but  was  over  six  feet  in  height. 
Xinian  was  a  man  of  very  respectable  abilities,  and 
was  well  posted  in  parliamentary  law.  His  manners 
and  deportment  were  not  calculated  to  win  friends 
amongst  his  equals  and  superiors,  and  of  the  latter 
class  there  were  many  in  that  body.  While  he  was. 
not  a  bad  man,  and  I  should  say  rather  an  honest,, 
good  man,  yet  he  had  inherited  from  his  father  so  much 
vanity  and  egotism,  that  it  made  him  offensive  to  most 
of  his  acquaintances.  He  was  never  partial  to  me,  but. 


280  LINDEK'S  BEMINISCENCES. 

I  have  always  thought  he  was  envious  of  me;  and  to 
be  candid  and  frank,  I  wish  my  readers  to  understand 
I  was  never  very  fond  of  him. 

He  has  filled  several  very  respectable  offices  in  the 
State  of  Illinois,  particularly  in  our  educational  depart- 
ment, and  I  have  never  heard  anything  of  him  in 
reference  to  the  discharge  of  his  official  duties  that 
would  tend  to  impugn  his  honor  or  honesty.  I  have 
given  him  a  place  here  because  he  was  a  member  of 
that  old  legislative  body  at  Vandalia  in  1836  and  1837, 
of  which  Lincoln,  Douglas,  Archie  Williams,  Gen. 
Shields,  and  a  host  of  other  men  who  have  climbed  to 
the  topmost  round  in  the  ladder  of  fame,  were  mem- 
bers, of  which  body  I  was  one  of  the  humblest. 

I  have  had  another  reason  for  giving  him  a  place  in 
these  memoirs.  He  was  connected  by  consanguinity 
with  families  that  I  ad  mired  and  loved — the  Popes  and 
the  Helms.  Perhaps  no  man  in  America  surpassed 
his  father  in  genius  and  talents.  He  was  at  one  time, 
as  I  have  said  before,  I  believe,  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Court  of  Appeals  of  Kentucky,  and  some  of  his  opin- 
ions, to  be  found  in  the  earlier  reports  of  Hardin  and 
Bibb,  will  compare  favorably  with  the  opinions  of 
Mansfield  and  Holt  of  England. 

Ninian  W.  Edwards  the  younger  was  naturally  and 
constitutionally  an  aristocrat,  and  he  hated  democracy 
when  I  first  knew  him,  as  the  devil  is  said  to  hate  holy 
water.  He  was  then  a  flaming  protectionist,  and  for 
a  high  tariff,  but  finally  became  a  free-trade  man,  and 
published  a  good  many  articles  in  the  papers  in  favor 
of  free-trade. 

At  the  time  of  this  revolution  in  his  political  senti- 


"W.  EDWAEDS.  281 

ments,  the  democratic  and  low  tariff  men  were  largely 
in  the  ascendancy,  and  I  have  always  thought  that 
Ninian  had  fixed  his  longing  eyes  upon  some  high  and 
lucrative  position  in  the  National  Government  that 
would  compensate  him  for  all  his  failures  while  he 
had  been  a  Whig  and  high  tariff  man.  In  this  I  may 
have  done  him  injustice.  Men  have  changed  their 
politics  time  and  again  from  the  highest  down  to  the 
lowest  stations.  Mr.  Clay  in  1811  was  an  anti-bank 
man,  and  at  that  time  made  the  finest  speech  of  his 
life  against  a  National  bank.  He  contended  that  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  conferred  no  power 
upon  Congress  to  charter  such  an  institution ;  but  in 
1816  Mr.  Clay  changed  his  opinions,  and  supported  a 
law  chartering  a  bank  of  the  United  States.  Mr. 
"Webster,  who  opposed  a  protective  tariff  in  1824, 
finally  became  the  great  champion  of  protection.  I 
admit  that  I,  myself,  an  original  Democrat,  changed 
my  political  views  in  1838  or  '9,  and  became  a  Whig, 
and  remained  so  until  that  party  was  merged  in  the 
Abolition  party  of  the  North.  I  accord  to  my  friend 
Ninian  W.  Edwards  all  the  rights  and  privileges  I 
claim  for  myself,  and  I  now  take  my  leave  of  him ;  and 
as  he  is  still  living,  if  these  pages  should  meet  his  eye, 
I  wish  him  not  to  suppose  that  I  have  any  malice  in 
my  heart  against  him. 


282  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


OHAELES  H.  CONSTABLE. 


HE  next  name  that  I  propose  to  present  to  my 
readers  is  not  a  man  of  southern,  but  I  might 
say  of  middle  Illinois;  I  mean  the  late  Judge 
Charles  H.  Constable,  of  Clark  count}',  Illinois.  I 
have  already  alluded  to  him  in  the  sketch  of  Judge 
Anthony  Thornton,  of  Shelbyville,  Illinois.  I  think 
it  was  in  1839  or  '40,  I  became  acquainted  with  him 
and  Anthony  Thornton.  It  may  have  been  later,  but 
I  am  drawing  entirely  upon  my  memory — having 
never  kept  a  diary  or  journal,  my  readers  must  par- 
don an  old  man  of  the  age  of  67  years  for  any  inac- 
curacy of  dates. 

Mr.  Constable  was  a  native  of  Maryland.  He  came 
to  Illinois  when  quite  a  }Toung  man,  and  as  I  have 
before  said,  was  one  of  the  handsomest  men  I  ever 
saw.  I  do  not  think  he  was  a  man  of  the  most  pre- 
eminent abilities,  as  very  handsome  or  pretty  men 
hardly  ever  are,  but  he  was  a  man  of  fine  culture  and 
elegant  manners,  and  was  very  popular  in  the  localities 
where  he  lived;  his  popularity,  however,  never  extend- 
ing to  the  limits  of  a  Congressional  District. 

He  was  really  a  good  lawyer,  both  at  common  law  and 
in  equity,  and  prepared  his  cases  with  great  care  and 
accuracy.  He  wrote  a  most  beautiful  and  legible 
hand,  was  a  good  pleader,  and  after  I  left  my  old 


CHARLES  H.  CONSTABLE. 

circuit,  lie  was  elevated  to  the  office  of  circuit  judge. 

I  came  to  Chicago  in  1860,  and  had  occasion  to  go 
down  to  the  Edgar  Circuit  Court  after  Constable  had 
been  elected  as  judge  of  that  circuit.  I  there  met  my 
old  friend  Anthony  Thornton,  and  I  asked  him  what 
kind  of  a  judge  Mr.  Constable  made.  "  Sir,"  said  he' 
"he  is  the  finest  circuit  court  judge  I  think  I  ever 
saw;  makes  up  most  of  his  records  himself,  not  trust- 
ing his  clerks  to  do  so." 

He  departed  this  life  some  years  ago,  and  the  manner 
of  that  departure  I  shall  not  dwell  upon.  It  was  sad, 
but  not  dishonorable;  and  I  do  not  believe  that  he 
left  a  single  stain,  blemish  or  blot  upon  his  reputation ; 
and  I  now  bid  farewell  to  his  memory. 


284  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JOKN"  BAIRD. 


JSHALL  now  go  back  to  Terre  Haute  and  pick 
up  the  name  of  a  lawyer  who  is  almost  as 
much  of  an  Illinoisan  as  an  Indianian— it  is 
Colonel  John  Baird.  I  knew  him  when  a  student  at 
law.  He  is  now  about  fort j- eight  years  of  age,  and 
was  born,  I  think,  in  Yigo  county,  Indiana.  He  is 
unquestionably  one  of  the  finest  lawyers  in  that  State. 
He  has  practiced  iu  Illinois  nearly  as  much  as  he  has 
in  his  native  State,  particularly  in  the  counties  of  Clark, 
Edgar,  Coles  and  Yermillion.  He  has  also  practiced 
extensively  in  Indiana,  and  particularly  in  the  Supreme 
and  Federal  Courts  of  that  State.  I  have  often  been 
associated  with  him  in  important  cases  in  the  Terre 
Haute  Circuit  Court,  and  I  never  had  a  more  pleasant 
and  able  associate. 

He  enlisted  in  the  civil- war  and  was  elected  Col- 
onel of*  one  of  the  Indiana  regiments.  He  was  taken 
prisoner  at  a  very  early  period  of  the  war  and  was 
confined  in  Libby  prison,  Richmond,  Ya.  All  the 
reports  that  we  had  of  him  while  in  the  service,  spoke 
of  him  as  one  of  the  "  bravest  of  the  brave,"  and  if 
he  had  any  fault  it  was  being  too  rash  and  desperate. 
He  was  one  of  our  most  knightly  colonels,  and  won 
unfading  laurels  in  some  of  the  bloodiest  engagements 


JOHN  BAIKD.  285 

of  the  civil  war.  He  was  finally  exchanged,  came 
home  and  did  not  again  return  to  the  war;  and  from 
that  time  to  this  has  continued  to  practice  his  profes- 
sion with  great  success,  in  partnership  with  General 
Charles  Krum,  another  one  of  our  brave  and  gallant 
Northern  soldiers. 

I  have  nothing  more  particular  to  say  of  Colonel 
John  Baird,  but  I  could  not  omit  him  from  these 
memoirs  without  doing  great  injustice  to  my  own  feel- 
ings, our  acquaintance  and  friendship  having  been  of 
long  standing  and  of  the  most  intimate  character. 
He  was  as  generous  as  a  prince,  and  there  was  not  a 
particle  of  avarice  or  meanness  in  his  composition,  of 
which  I  have  more  than  once  received  the  most  sub- 
stantial proofs.  He  would  divide  his  last  dollar  with 
a  friend,  and  was  benevolent  and  charitable  almost  to 
a  fault,  being  sometimes  too  indiscriminate  in  the 
objects  thereof.  No  needy  man  or  woman  was  ever 
sent  away  empty  from  his  door;  and  whatever  may 
be  the  Colonel's  faults,  they  are  greatly  overbalanced 
by  his  virtues,  and  I  sincerely  wish  that  our  profession 
and  the  world  had  more  such  men.  I  know  of  but  one 
man  with  whom  to  compare  him  as  a  lawyer,  and  that 
is  our  own  Judge  John  Scholfield,  of  Illinois,  of  whom 
I  have  heretofore  spoken  in  these  memoirs.  He 
deserves  a  larger  space  here  than  I  am  able  to  give 
him  at  this  time,  but  some  future  chronicler  will  sup- 
ply what  I  have  left  out,  and  do  to  the  Colonel  that 
complete  justice  to  which  he  is  entitled. 


286  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JOSEPH  G.  BOWMAK 


I  WILL  now  introduce  the  name  of  an  old  law- 
yer friend  whose  name  was  Joseph  G.  Bowman. 
I  became  acquainted  with  him  on  my  first  or 
second  trip  around  my  Wabash  circuit  at  Mt.  Carmel, 
where  he  then  resided  and  practiced  his  profession. 
He  was  a  partner  at  that  time  and  for  some  time  sub-, 
sequent  with  Col.  O.  B.  Ficklin.  I  knew  him  after 
he  removed  to  Lawrenceville,  in  this  State,  and  my 
acquaintance  with  him  is  of  many  years'  standing.'  I 
met  him  at  every  court  in  Lawrenceville,  which  1 
attended  regularly  twice  a  year.  He  finally  purchased 
the  old  Dubcris  farm,  situated  a  little  above  Yincennes, 
and  on  the  Illinois  side  of  the  "Wabash  River,  on  a  beau- 
tiful eminence  overlooking  that  old  town  and  lovely 
stream.  He  afterwards  removed  to  Yincennes,  In- 
diana, where  he  finally  came  to  his  death  by  his  own 
hand  in  a  most  melancholy  and  tragic  manner.  He 
had  been  afflicted  for  many  years  with  rheumatism, 
and  suffered  more  perhaps  than  any  man  that  ever 
had  that  terrible  and  painful  disease.  He  had  resorted 
to  every  means  that  eminent  physicians  could  pre- 
scribe, and  had  taken  all  their  nostrums,  with  little  or 
no  alleviation  from  the  torture  and  pain  he  suffered. 
To  obtain  relief  from  this  terrible  infliction  he  resorted 
to  morphine,  and  acquired  thereby  that  miserable  habit 


JOSEPH  Gr.  BOWMAN.  287 

from  which  but  few  have  ever  been  able  to  escape; 
but  I  have  seen  it  from  under  his  own  hand  that  he 
was  cured  of  that  habit  by  a  Mr.  Collins  of  LaPorte, 
Indiana;  but  it  seems  his  rheumatic  pains  never  left 
him,  'but  grew  worse  and  worse,  until  he  could  endure 
them  no  longer;  and  one  Sabbath  day,  while  he  and 
his  wife  and  another  lady  were  sitting  at  dinner, 
at  his  own  table,  he  deliberately  retired  into  the 
kitchen,  without  their  suspecting  what  he  intended, 
but  they  presently  heard  him  fall  arid  groan.  They 
instantly  arose  and  went  to  him,  and  found  him  dead 
on  the  floor,  with  a  butcher-knife  piercing  his  left  side 
just  above  the  lower  rib,  which  had  gone  straight  home 
to  his  heart;  and  it  was  so  tightly  wedged  between 
his  two  ribs  that  the  two  ladies  could  not  withdraw  it. 
There  was  but  one  way  possible  by  which  he  could 
have  done  the  deed,  and  that  was  by  placing  the  point 
of  the  sharp  knife  at  the  place  he  supposed  opposite  to 
his  heart,  and  standing  close  to  the  wall  with  the 
handle  of  the  knife  against  it,  pressing  with  all  his 
weight  upon  it  until  it  entered  and  reached  the  center 
and  source  of  life.  These  latter  particulars  I  obtained 
from  a  relative  of  his  wife,  Mr.  James  Roberts,  an 
eminent  and  distinguished  lawyer  of  Chicago,  Illinois. 
Mr.  Bowman  was  something  of  a  politician  and 
writer.  He  was  a  native  of  Virginia,  and  had  received 
a  liberal  and  classical  education.  His  conversational 
powers  were  of  a  quiet  but  most  agreeable  and  instruc- 
tive character.  It  is  due  to  him  and  his  most  excel- 
lent lady,  that  I  should  here  say,  that  they  were  two 
of  the  most  hospitable  people  I  ever  knew,  and  they 
never  failed  during  the  terms  of  the  Lawrenceville 


288  LIKDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

court  to  Lave  the  court  and  bar  at  their  elegant  man- 
sion, to  partake  of  their  sumptuous  dinners  and  sup- 
pers; and  on  such  occasions  he  and  she  dispensed  their 
hospitality  in  a  way  that  now  warms  my  heart  and 
makes  my  mouth  water  to  think  of.  I  ought  to  here 
say  that  Mrs.  Bowman  was  a  woman  of  high  culture 
and  refinement,  and  had  been  liberally  educated,  and 
her  conversational  powers  were  hardly  inferior  to  those 
of  my  friend  Joe. 

At  these  times  to  which  I  now  allude,  Joe  was  not 
suffering  from  rheumatism,  having  been  visited  there- 
with at  a  later  period  of  life;  consequently,  there  was 
nothing  to  interfere  with  his  social  and  convivial 
qualities,  and  never  .  have  I  enjoyed  more  pleasure 
than  to  sit  and  hear  him,  in  his  quiet  way,  pour  out 
from  the  rich  stores  of  his  memory  historical  anec- 
dotes that  were  not  common-place  or  stale,  but  always 
a  little  out  of  the  reach  of  ordinary  readers  and  stu- 
dents. I  have  often  thought  that  his  colloquial  powers 
were  not  much  inferior  to  those  which  Macauley  is 
said  to  have  possessed.  He  had  a  splendid  library, 
both  legal  and  miscellaneous,  and  his  books  were  not 
kept  for  mere  show  in  his  book-case.  He  was  familiar 
with  all  literature,  and  had  trodden  all  the  higher 
walks  thereof. 

He  was  two  or  three  times  a  member  of  the  Illinois 
Legislature  during  a  portion  of  his  life.  Some  six  or 
eight  years  before  his  death  he  had  lived  in  Yincennes, 
Indiana,  where  he  practiced  his  profession,  and  was,  as 
I  have  understood,  at  one  time  Judge  of  one  of  their 
courts  of  record,  but  whether  it  was  the  Circuit  Court 
or  Court  of  Common  Pleas  I  do  not  now  remember. 


JOSEPH  G.  BOWMAN.  289 

While  Bowman  lived  at  Mt.  Carrael  he  edited  a 
local  paper  there,  and  he  did  it  exceedingly  well.  I 
have  seen  some  rich  things  from  his  pen  written  in  the 
style  and  imitation  of  Bible  Chronicles,  over  which  I 
have  had  many  a  hearty  laugh.  lie  could  crack  a 
rich  joke  and  tell  a  fine  story,  in  which  he  was  not 
surpassed  even  by  Mr.  Lincoln  himself. 

He  was  a  staunch  Whig,  and  belonged  to  that  party 
from  its  original  organization  to  its  final  demise.  He 
used  while  editing  his  paper  to  aim  some  of  his  good 
humored  shafts  at  me.  I  remember  in  one  of  his 
Chronicles  he  took  a  fling  at  my  old  friend  Zadock 
Casey  and  myself,  in  which  he  respectively  called  us 
"  Usher  the  mighty  "  and  "Zadock  the  high  priest." 
He  represented  us  in  Bible  language  as  calling  all  the 
tribes  of  Israel  together,  and  after  having  given  our 
speeches  he  added:  "  And  all  the  people  cried  aloud, 
Amen!"  .  It  was  impossible  to  take  offense  at  Joe's 
humorous  Chronicles  and  laughable  epigrams. 

Aye,  dear  reader,  it  is  with  pleasure  that  I  go  back 
in  memory  to  my  acquaintance  with  Joe  Bowman,  and 
with  sorrow  and  sadness  contemplate  his  melancholy 
end.  He  was  my  devoted  personal  friend  all  the 
years  of  our  acquaintance,  and  as  I  have  said  in  my 
sketch  of  Colonel  Baird,  of  that  friendship  I  have  had 
many  substantial  proofs,  which  if  I  did  not  remember 
I  would  be  dead  to  all  the  instincts  and  sensibilities 
of  an  honorable  man,  and  I  never  shall  forget  them 
while  life  lasts  and  memory  endures. 

I  will  here  take  leave  of  my  friend  Bowman,  trust- 
ing that  we  shall  meet  again  in  a  higher  and  nobler 
sphere  of  existence. 
19 


290  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


P.  USHER 


|  WILL  now  present  to  my  readers  the  name  of 
John  P.  Usher,  late  of  Terre  Haute,  Indiana, 
but  now  of  Leavenworth,  Kansas.  I  knew 
him  from  the  time  he  first  settled  in  Terre  Haute. 
He  has  a  history  somewhat  like  that  of  our  distingu- 
ished statesman,  the  late  Abraham  Lincoln,  a  portion 
of  which  I  gathered  from  his  own  mouth.  He  is  a 
native  of  the  State  of  !New  York.  He  was  born  in 
the  cold,  wet,  hemlock  region  of  that  State.  His  father 
was  a  very  poor  man,  and  when  John  P.  was  but  a 
very  small  boy  he  hired  him  out  to  a  neighbor  of  his 
for  three  dollars  a  month.  He  told  me  that  the  first 
work  he  was  set  to  doing  was  carrying  sugar-water,  to 
be  boiled  down  and  made  into  maple  sugar.  His 
•employer  had  a  large  sugar  orchard,  and  Usher  told 
•me  that  his  employer  worked  him  nearly  to  death, 
and  in  a  short  time  he  ran  away  from  him  and  went 
'home.  His  father  he  said  abused  him  on  his  return, 
and  told  him  he  would  never  be  good  for  anything  in 
"the  world.  Usher  told  his  father  he  would  show  him 
one  of  these  days  that  there  was  more  "  come-out "  in 
him  than  he  supposed.  He  went  to  school  awhile,  and 
receiving  a  common  English  education,  finally,  at  the 
age  of  nineteen  or  twenty,  studied  law,  and  perhaps 


JOHN  P.  USHER.  291 

practiced  a  while  in  his  native  State,  but  ultimately 
removed  to  the  western  country,  and  settled  in  Terre 
Haute,  Ind.,  where  he  practiced  his  profession  with 
great  success,  acquiring  thereby  a  very  handsome  prop- 
erty, when  he  married  a  Miss  Patterson,  the  daughter 
of  old  Captain  Patterson,  a  Scotchman.  She  is  the 
sister  of  Judge  Chambers  Patterson,  the  present  pre- 
siding judge  of  the  Circuit  Court,  including  the 
county  of  Vigo. 

John  P.  Usher  is  a  man  of  no  ordinary  talent.  I 
knew  him  personally  and  well.  He  practiced  in  our 
courts  and  I  in.his.  We  were  frequently  pitted  against 
each  other  in  important  causes. 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  got  to  be  President,  he  nomi- 
nated Caleb  B.  Smith  his  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  but 
after  Smith's  death  he  gave  the  office  to  John  P.  Usher, 
having  taken  a  very  active  and  potential  part  in  Mr. 
Lincoln's  nomination.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  known  him 
long  and  well;  and  it  has  been  said  that  John  P. 
Usher  made  a  very  able  Secretary  of  the  Interior. 

When  I  first  knew  Usher  he  was  a  very  handsome 
man,  possessed  of  fine  form  and  features,  but  after 
passing  the  age  of  forty  he  had  grown  quite  corpulent, 
though  he  was  still  by  no  means  a  homely  man.  I 
know  of  but  few  better  lawyers  than  John  P.  Usher. 
I  have  been  told  upon  good  authority,  that  he  is 
worth  several  million  dollars,  most  of  which  he  acquired 
while  Secretary  of  the  Interior  by  entering  large 
bodies  of  choice  land  along  the  line  of  the  Union  Paci- 
fic Railroad,  besides  which  he  owns  a  large  amount 
of  stock  in  that  company.  I  am  not  sure  but  what  at 
one  time  he  was  president  of  that  road,  though  I  can- 


292  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

not  speak  of  that  with  any  degree  of  certainty,  but  I 
know  that  he  filled  some  important  office  in  that 
company. 

I  do  not  know  that  I  should  have  introduced  the 
name  of  John  P.  Usher  into  these  memoirs,  had  it  not 
been  for  his  having  filled  so  important  a  place  in  Mr. 
Lincoln's  administration,  and  also  from  the  knowledge 
on  my  part  that  he  was  very  highly  esteemed  by  Mr. 
Lincoln,  and  enjoyed  his  confidence  in  a  very  high 
degree. 

I  have  not  written  this  work  for  the  purpose  of 
unjustly  extolling  the  memory  of  the  cjead  or  flatter- 
ing the  living.  I  will  therefore  say,  lest  what  1  have 
written  of  John  P.  Usher  might  be  misconstrued,  that 
he  was  no  particular  favorite  of  mine.  I  always  es- 
teemed him  a  grasping,  avaricious  man,  whose  whole 
soul  was  absorbed  in  the  acquisition  of  money  and 
property,  and  if  he  was  very  scrupulous  in  the  man- 
ner of  their  acquisition,  I  have  never  heard  any  one 
charge  it  as  an  offense  against  him.  I  want  my 
readers  however  to  understand  that  at  this  time  I 
cherish  no  unkind  feelings  toward  Mr.  Usher,  though 

O  /  o 

there  have  been  times  in  our  lives  when  the  personal 
,and  professional  relations  between  us  were  none  of 
the  most  pleasant  or  friendly.  He  has  money  and 
property  enough  to  buy  his  way  through  this  world, 
and  cares  but  precious  little  for  my  friendship  or  that 
of  any  one  else.  I  here  take  my  leave  of  John  P. 
Usher. 


KICHAKD  W.  THOMPSON.  293 


EIOHAED  W.  THOMPSON. 


I  SHALL  now  introduce  the  name  of  a  man 
that  pleases  me  much  better  than  the  one  I 
have  last  written  of.  It  is  the  name  of  Colo- 
nel Richard  W.  Thompson,  of  Terre  Haute/Indiana, 
an  old  lawyer  of  considerable  .distinction,  and  who 
was  for  many  years  a  Representative  in  Congress 
from  the  Wabash  district  in  Indiana.  Colonel  Thomp- 
son is  a  man  of  National  as  well  as  State  fame.  While 
a  member  of  Congress  he  made  many  speeches  and 
reports  which  brought  him  to  the  favorable  notice  of 
the  press  and  the  politicians.  He  was  always  a  Whig, 
and  in  the  administrations  of  the  various  Whig  Presi- 
dents, from  General  Harrison  up  to  General  Taylor, 
he  took  a  prominent  and  distinguished  part.  While 
Colonel  Thompson  was  a  member  of  Congress,  or 
since'his  retirement  from  that  body,  he  successfully 
engineered  the  claim  of  one  of  our  Western  Indian 
tribes  through  Congress  or  the  Court  of  Claims,  for 
which  this  tribe  created  him  the  chief  of  their  nation, 
and  he  is  to-day,  though  not  living  with  his  tribe,  one 
of  the  grand  sachems  or  chiefs  of  an  Indian  nation. 

Col.  Thompson  is  to-day  one  of  the  oldest  and  most 
distinguished  living  lawyers  of  Indiana.  He  rode  the 
circuit  with  such  men  as  .Dewey,  Sam  Judah,  John 
Law,  and  others.  I  have  listened  for  hours  with  the 


294:  LENDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

most  exquisite  delight  to  tfce  narrations  by  Col. 
Thompson  of  the  incidents  that  occurred  on  his  old 
circuit.  His  associates  at  the  bar  were  men  of  rare 
endowments,  and  their  stories  and  jokes,  given  me  by 
Col.  Thompson,  have  convulsed  me v with  laughter  to 
the  splitting  of  my  sides.  I  am  sorry  that  I  cannot 
recall  some  of  them  witli  which  to  brighten,  adorn 
and  enliven  these  pages — such  as  would  bear  telling 
and  not  be  offensive  to  my  delicate  and  modest  read- 
ers, for  it  must  be  confessed  that,  like  some  of  Lin- 
coln's stories,  the  jokes  and  repartees  of  our  old  law- 
yers will  hardly  bear  reading  in  a  lady's  parlor. 

It  is  due  to  Colonel  Thompson  that  I  should  say 
here  that  although  a  Southern  man,  having  been  born 
in  the  State  of  Virginia,  he  was  a  patriot  in  our 
civil  war,  and  took  an  active  part  on  the  Union  side. 
Mr.  Lincoln  created  him  a  recruiting  agent  or  officer 
at  Terre  Haute  for  that  military  district,  which  office 
he  filled  to  the  satisfaction  of  Mr.  Lincoln  and  the 
country  at  large.  Col.  Thompson  is  now,  as  I  under- 
stand, the  lawyer  of  one  or  two  railroads  in  Indiana 
and  Illinois,  and  has  a  very  handsome  salary,  and  in 
the  discharge  of  his  duly  to  his  clients,  he  shows  as 
much  activity,  industry  and  zeal  as  such  members  of 
the  profession  do  towards  their  clients. 

Colonel  Thompson  is  now  not  far,  if  any,  from  sev- 
enty years  of  age.  I  have  often  met  and  contended 
with  Colonel  Thompson  at  the  Terre  Haute  bar,  and 
have  also  met  him  in  my  own  State  courts,  and  I 
really  think  a  finer  advocate  I  never  heard  in  my  life. 
He  possessed  a  fluency  and  flow  of  language  which 
falls  to  the  share  of  but  few  men  in  this  world.  He 


BICHAKD  "W.  THOMPSON.  295 

possessed  a  very  fine  voice,  and  was  capable  at  all 
times  of  rising  to  the  very  highest  pitch  of  oratory. 
He  is  a  man  of  irreproachable  character,  and  as  a  law- 
yer and  a  statesman  does  not  fall  below  any  man  in 
the  Northwest.  He  and  I  have  always  been  warm 
personal  friends.  The  last  time  I  saw  him  was  just 
after  the  last  Presidential  election,  on  my  return  from 
Alton  through  Terre  Haute,  to  my  home  in  Chicago, 
when  and  where  I  had  a  long  and  agreeable  conversa- 
tion with  the  Colonel  at  the  office  of  my  two  friends, 
Colonel  John  Baird  and  General  Charles  Krum,  those 
two  gentlemen  being  present  and  participating  therein. 
I  remember  distinctly  it  was  upon  that  occasion  that 
Col.  Baird  said,  addressing  himself  to  Colonel  Thomp- 
son and  myself,  "  Colonel  Thompson,  you  and  General 
Linder  are  the  only  two  men  now  living  that  I  know 
of  capable  of  writing  a  respectable  historj7  of  the  In- 
diana and  Illinois  bar,  and  you  ought  jointly  to  do  so. 
before  Time  snatches  you  both  away,  when  the  facts 
which  you  possess  will  die  with  you,  and  there  will  be 
none  left  to  perform  that  work."  I  little  thought  at 
that  time  that  I  would  be  now  engaged  in  the  Hercu- 
lean labors  into  which  I  have  embarked. 

I  want  to  say,  before  I  leave  the  name  of  Colonel 
Thompson,  that  he  wrote  a  good  many  political  theses, 
which  were  published,  if  I  remember  correctly,  in  the 
National  Intelligencer  at  "Washington  City. 

Colonel  Thompson's  name  is  almost  a  household 
word  in  Indiana  and  Eastern  Illinois.  The  only  thing 
that  I  regret  upon  this  occasion  is  that  I  cannot  do, 
more  than  half  justice  to  the  name,  fame  and  public 
services  of  Colonel  Thompson.  Did  I  possess  the 


296  LIKDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

materials  to  do  so,  a  sketch  of  his  life  alone  would 
make  a  book  larger  than  these  memoirs,  but  I  have 
had  to  draw  from  my  memory,  not  particularly  charged 
witli  such;  I  must  forego  the  pleasure  it  would  give 
me  to  adorn  these  pages  with  a  further  and  fuller 
notice  of  a  man  whose  name  is  bound  to  fill  a  very 
large  space  in  history. 

In  taking  leave  of  Colonel  Thompson's  name.  I 
wish  to  say  to  my  readers  that  I  do  not  wish  them  to 
judge  of  him  alone  from  this  meagre  notice. 

Colonel  Thompson  is  a  small  man,  that  is  to  say, 
considering  him  in  an  avoirdupois  sense,  but  in  height 
I  would  say  a  little  above  the  medium  altitude.  He 
is  a  man  of  a  very  amiable  and  agreeable  expression 
of  countenance.  He  is  not  one  of  that  class  of  men 
who  repels  you;  he  is  eminently  social  and  agreeable. 
He  is  a  man  of  excellent  habits,  and  a  member  of  the 
Methodist  church,  but  he  is  no  bigot,  and  far  from 
being  intolerant  in  his  religious  notions.  He  has  the 
reputation  of  being  a  man  of  great  charity  and  benevo- 
lence, to  which  I  think,  from  what  I  know  of  him.  he 
is  well  entitled.  I  have  understood  from  those  who 
know  him  better  than  I  do,  that  he  is  one  of  the  kind- 
est of  husbands  and  fathers  and  one  of  the  best  of 
neighbors.  I  am  sorry  to  part  with  him.  It  is 
exceedingly  pleasent  to  me  to  dwell  upon  such  a  char- 
acter. I  have  had  his  bright,  genial  and  beaming 
countenance  before  me  all  the  time  I  have  been  wri- 
ting about  him,  but  I  am  compelled  now  to  say,  Col. 
Dick,  for  the  present  I  bid  you  farewell. 


SAMUEL  JUDAH.  297 


SAMUEL  JUDAH. 


1WILL  introduce  another  name  from  Indiana. 
He  has  gone  to  the  land  of  spirits.  It  is  the 
name  of  Samuel  Judah,  of  Vincennes,  Indi- 
ana. He  was  one  of  the  oldest  lawyers  with  whom  I 
was  personally  acquainted  in  the  State  of  Indiana.  I 
don't  know  where  he  was  born,  but  I  know  that 
his  father  was  a  Jew,  and  that  he  himself  was  a  Jew. 
He  was  living  at  Vincennes,  and  had  been  for  a  long 
time  previous  to  the  time  I  came  through  there,  re- 
moving from  my  native  State,  Kentucky,  to  Illinois. 
This  was,  as  I  have  often  stated  before,  in  the  summer 
of  1835.  At  that  time  Vincennes  was  a  dilapidated, 
rusty  looking  town.  It  is  now  a  flourishing  city,  the 
focus  of  several  important  railroads,  and  at  one  time, 
was  the  home  of  General  Wm.  Henry  Harrison. 

The  first  time  that  I  saw  Sam  Judah  was  in  1836  or 
'7,  at  Lawrenceville,  on  my  first  trip  around  my  cir- 
4cuit.  It  is  situated  nine  miles  west  of  Vincennes,  on 
what  was  then  called  the  old  Vincennes  and  St.  Louis 
trail.  He  was  there  in  attendance  on  the  Circuit 
Court,  Judge  Justin  Harlan  presiding.  He  was  a 
man  below  the  medium  height,  rather  bent  and  bowed 
in  form.  He  had  a  perfect  Jewish  face,  with  a  sort  of 
hawk-bill  nose,  the  lower  point  of  which  looked  like  it 
was  going  to  jump  down  his  throat  and  leave  him 


298  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

without  that  facial  appendage.  No  man  to  look  at 
him  would  for  a  .moment  have  taken  him  to  be  the 
man  of  talent  that  he  really  was.  As  a  land  lawyer  I 
don't  know  that  I  ever  knew  his  equal.  At  this  term 
of  the  Lawrenceville  court  nothing  occurred  in  refer- 
ence to  Sam  Judah  worthy  of  being  here  recorded;  but 
I  afterwards  met  him  at  that  court  at  every  term 
thereof,  and  he  seemed  to  have  contracted  a  hatred  and 
particular  dislike  for  me,  which  was  most  cordially 
returned  on  my  part,  and  that  with  compound  interest 
and  usury.  He  had  no  relish  for  any  man  who  spoke 
well,  he  himself,  although  a  good  lawyer,  being  a  dry 
and  indifferent  speaker,  with  a  voice  which  reminded 
me  of  the  squealing  of  a  pig  more  than  the  voice  of 
man.  It  certainly  did  not  come  up  to  the  music  of  a 
dog  "  that  bays  deep-mouthed  welcome  as  we  draw 
near  home,"  which  Byron  says  is  one  of  the  things 
sweet  to  hear. 

Judah  had  some  peculiarities  in  character  and  tem- 
perament. One  was  that  he  would  cry  like  a  whipped 
child  when  attacked  in  court  or  the  legislature  by 
an  opponent  who  could  castigate  and  paint  him  as  he 
deserved.  On  one  occasion  in  Lawrenceville,  he  was 
engaged  in  a  slander  suit.  After  he  had  made  the  last 
speech  and  court  adjourned  for  dinner,  as  we  were, 
going  thereto,  some  of  the  lawyers,  knowing  my  dis- 
like for  Judah,  asked  me  what  I  thought  of  his  speech. 
"Oh,"  said  I,  "  it  was  very  good;  but  it  put  me  in  a 
paroxysm  of  pain,  for  it  reminded  me  more  of  the 
squealing  of  a  pig  that  somebody  was  screwing  bv  the 
tail  than  the  voice  of  a  mortal  man."  lie  turned  to 
me  and  said  in  a  whimpering  half-cry,  "  D — n  you, 


SAMUEL  JTTDAH.  299 

I'll  pay  yon  for  that  remark  one  of  these  days."  After 
we  had  taken  dinner  and  returned  to  court,  the  jury 
were  ready  to  deliver  their  verdict.  Judah  was  on  tip- 
toe to  hear  it;  and  when  it  was  delivered,  it  appeared 
they  had  found  a  verdict  of  five  hundred  dollars  in 
damages  in  favor  of  Judah's  client. 

That  was  a  big  verdict  in  those  days  and  in  that  local- 
ity. Judah  was  almost  ready  to  burst  with  exultation. 
I  was  sitting  close  by  him,  and  he  turned  to  me  with 
a  triumphant  and  sneering  look  and  said:  "Wasn't 
that  pretty  good  squealing,  d — n  you?"  which  was 
heard  by  everybody  present,  when  the  judge,  bar  and 
myself  burst  out  into  the  most  obstreperous  laughter. 

Judah  was  a  very  vain  man.  On  one  occasion,  when 
I  was  at  Yincennes,  some  of  my  friends  there  asked 
me  if  Judah  had  taken  me  to  see  his  portrait.  I  told 
them  that  he  had  not.  "  Well,"  said  they,  "he  will 
be  sure  to  do  so,  for  he  takes  everybody,  both  friend 
and  foe,  to  see  it.  It  has  but  recently  been  painted, 
and  is  still  at  the  artist's." 

In  a  short  time  I  met  with  Judah,  and  after  shaking 
hands  with  him,  he  seeming  more  friendly  than  usual, 
invited  me  to  go  with  him  and  look  at  his  portrait, 
saying  that  he  wished  to  know  my  opinion,  whether 
or  not  it  was  a  good  one.  I  went  with  him  to  the 
artist's  studio,  and  he  asked  the  artist  to  show  it  to  me. 
It  was  standing  against  the  wall  with  the  painted  side 
towards  it.  The  artist  went  and  turned  it  round  with 
the  face  towards  us,  the  top  of  the  picture  leaning 
against  the  wall.  He  had  scarcely  done  so  when  a 
great  big,  shaggy,  ill-favored  cur  dog  came  rushing 
through  the  door,  which  Judah  and  I  had  left  ajar,  and 


300  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

went  straight  for  the  picture,  and  before  we  could  stop 
him  he  was  in  front  of  the  portrait  and  with  one  hind 
leg  hoisted  did  what  the  reader  may  imagine  without 
ray  naming  it  in  so  many  words.  Judah  went  for  him 
with  a  vengeance,  screaming  and  squealing  and  crying 
at  the  top  of  his  voice:  "  Get  out!  get  out!  get  out! 
You  d — d  son  of  a  bitch."  "  Sir,"  said  I,  turning  to 
the  artist,  "you  have  just  had  the  finest  compliment 
paid  to  your  skill  that  was  ever  bestowed  upon  mortal 
man,  for  the  very  dogs  recognize  the  exact  resemblance 
of  your  picture  to  Mr.  Judah;  otherwise  his  dogship, 
which  has  just  left  us,  would  not  have  baptized  it  in 
the  manner  he  did." 

"Why,  sir,"  said  the  painter,  "you  certainly  don't 
mean  to  say  that  the  dogs  are  in  the  habit  ot  treatin- 
the  original  as  that  impudent  fellow  just  treated  his 
picture  ?" 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  I,  "  by  no  means,"  speaking  in  an 
ironical  tone. 

"  Oh,  yes  you  do,  d n  you."  said  Judah;  "  and 

I  am  sorry  I  brought  you  to  look  at  it; "  and  he  actu- 
ally cried  like  a  child,  and  the  tears  ran  down  his 
cheeks.  I  was  sorry  for  what  I  had  said,  for  it  was 
really  not  said  in  malice,  but  to  have  a  little  fun  and 
sport  with  Judah.  I  begged  his  pardon,  took  him  by 
the  arm  and  led  him  off  to  my  hotel,  where  we  soon 
washed  down  the  remembrance  of  what  I  had  said, 
and  what  the  dog  had  done  to  his  portrait.  But  the 
story  soon  got  out,  and  every  wag  and  wit  rang  the 
changes  upon  it  from  Lawrenceville  to  Viucennes,  and 
from  Yincennes  to  Terre  Haute. 

Judah  was  once  speaker  of  the  House  of  Represent- 


SAMUEL  JTJDAH. 


301 


atives  in  the  legislature  of  Indiana,  and  I  have  under- 
stood, made  a  very  good  one.  He  has  been  dead 
several  years.  He  died  at  a  very  advanced  age. 

I  have  bestowed  enough  space  on  Samuel  Judah, 
and  although,  as  I  have  said,  I  was  not  partial  or  fond 
of  the  man,  yet  I  did  respect  his  talents,  and  I  now 
revere  his  memory  as  one  of  the  greatest  lawyers  in 
the  Northwest. 


302  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JOHN  M.  WILSON. 


IOME  of  my  friends  have  advised  trie  to  say 
nothing  in  these  memoirs  of  the  living  men 
or  lawyers  in  Chicago,  and  assigned  the  follow- 
ing reason  why  I  should  not  do  so:  That  inasmuch  as 
I  could  not  put  them  all  in  my  book,  those  who  would 
be  left  out  would  be  greatly  incensed  and  offended,  and 
would  attack  the  work  and  make  it  unpopular.  I  have 
reflected  deeply  upon  this  subject,  and  have  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  in  this  instance  I  shall  depart  from 
the  advice  of  my  friends.  If  I  have  any  weakness 
more  than  another,  it  is  that  of  sacrificing  my  own 
opinions  to  those  of  my  friends.  I  do  not  feel  that  it 
is  right  to  wait  until  a  man  dies  before  he  receives  the 
justice  and  the  full  measure  of  applause  to  which  lie  is 
entitled.  Most  of  the  men  whom  I  intend  to  intro- 
duce bid  fair  to  outlive  me  many  years,  and  when  I  am 
dead  and  gone,  where  shall  be  found  so  luminous  a  pen 
as  mine  to  make  up  their  record  and  emblazon  the 
pages  of  history  with  their  virtues!  Therefore  I  have 
resolved  to  write  them  up  so  far  as  the  materials  in 
my  possession  will  enable  me  to  do  so;  and  the  first 
name  I  shall  introduce  and  present  to  my  readers  and 
posterity,  if  this  humble  work  should  travel  so  far,  is 
that  of  our  respected,  eminent,  talented  and  learned 


JOHN  M.  WILSON.  303 

fellow-citizen,  John  M.  Wilson,  who  was  late  one  of 
our  judges  of  the  Superior  Court  of  Cook  county. 

He  was  on  the  bench  when  I  came  to  Chicago  in 
1860.  Judge  Wilson  is  a  native  of  one  of  the  New  Eng- 
land States,  and  as  he  has  informed  me,  when  he  grad- 
uated and  left  college  he  was  in  low  and  feeble  health, 
and  was  advised  by  his  physicians  to  go  to  a  warmer 
climate;  and  they,  also  advised  him  not  to  travel  by 
the  then  most  usual  mode  of  conveyance — the  old  lum- 
bering four-horse  stage — but  to  travel  on  foot;  which 
lie  did,  walking,  as  his  strength  would  permit,  from 
New  England  to  Georgia,  where  he  taught  school, 
initiating  the  sons  of  wealthy  gentlemen  and  planters 
into  the  secrets  and  beauties  of  classical  literature, 
making  them  familiar  with  Homer,  Horace,  Virgil  arid 
Caesar,  thus  preparing  them  to  enter  college.  He 
taught  there  for  several  years,  and  he  has  told  me  him- 
self, that  although  when  he  went  there  he  was  greatly 
prejudiced  against  slavery  and  slave-holders,  he  was 
never  treated  with  greater  kindness  and  hospitality 
than  that  which  he  received  from  Southern  gentlemen 
and  their  families. 

With  his  health  perfectly  restored,  he  returned  to 
New  England,  studied  law,  and  after  the  completion 
of  his  studies,  came  to  the  West  and  located  himself 
at  Joliet.  He  was  a  ripe  scholar  and  an  excellent 
lawyer,  and  from  the  very  first  took  his  place  at  the 
head  of  the  bar,  and  from  that  day  until  the  end  of 
his  legal  career  he  stood  in  the  front  ranks  of  his  pro- 
fession. 

During  his  residence  in  Joliet  he  formed  a  legal 
partnership  with  Elisha  Fellows,  an  eminent  lawyer 


304:  LIKDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

of  that  place,  still  living;  and  it  was  during  this 
period  that  Miller,  the  great  apostle  of  the  Second 
Advent  of  the  Savior  announced  to  the  world  that  on 
a  certain  day  in  the  year  1843,  I  think  it  was,  the 
Lord  would  make  his  appearance,  and  receive  his 
saints  up  in  the  sky,  at  which  time  the  wicked  and 
their  works  were  to  be  burnt  up.  This  he  proved  to 
the  perfect  satisfaction  of  all  his  followers,  from  the 
prophecy  of  Daniel,  to  which  absurd  doctrine  millions 
became  converts,  and  amongst  them  my  friends  Judge 
John  M.  Wilson  and  Elisha  Fellows. 

I  have  never  been  more  amused  than  I  was  from  the 
humorous  account  which  Fellows  gave  me  of  his  and 
John  M.  Wilson's  conversion.  He  said  they  dropped 
all  their  professional  business,  and  went  from  school 
house  to  school  house,  preaching  the  second  advent 
of  the  Savior,  "  and  let  me  tell  you,  sir,"  said  he,  "  I 
have  had  my  soul  perfectly  thrilled  and  set  on  fire  by 
the  preaching  of  John  M.  Wilson.  Why,  sir,"  said 
he,  "he  would  take  up  those  old  prophecies  and 
demonstrate  the  re-appearance  of  the  Savior,  and  make 
it  as  clear  to  me  as  a  proposition  in  Euclid.  I  was 
greatly  disgusted,"  said  Fellows,  "  with  some  of  my 
infidel  friends  and  neighbors,  who  discredited  our 
theology,  when  so  near  the  end  of  the  world,  and  who 
proceeded  with  their  ordinary  avocations,  marrying 
and  giving  in  marriage,  and  hoarding  up  their  sordid 
gains,  as  though  they  were  going  to  live  forever.  One 
day  I  was  riding  along  where  some  of  my  acquain- 
tances were  building  a  new  log  house.  I  reined  up 
my  horse  and  addressed  them  in  solemn  tones  as  fol- 
lows: 'Fellow-men,  dying  mortals  and  sinners,  are 


JOHN  M.  WILSON.  305 

you  crazy,  to  be  building  a  house  that  in  six  days  from 
now  will  be  nothing  but  a  heap  of  livid  coals?'  and 
don't  you  think,  sir,  they  actually  laughed  at  me?" 

He  told  me  further  that  he  and  John  M.  actually 
supported  and  fed  about  twenty  of  their  poor  converts 
who  lived  close  around  them,  for  several  months. 
Said  he  to  me,  "  some  mischievous  young  lawyers  who 
lived  in  Joliet,  that  disbelieved  in  our  theology,  one 
day  proposed  to  me  to  buy  my  law  library  (I  had  a 
very  fine  one).  This  rather  took  me  aback  for  a  sec- 
ond, but  I'soon  recovered  and  said  to  the  young  men, 
'You  have  no  need  of  law  books;  they  will  soon  be 
burnt  up;  besides,  this  is  no  time  for  trading,  but  for 
singing  psalms  and  hymns,  praising  God  and  meeting 
your  Lord  in  the  skies.  Let  me  admonish  you  to  pre- 
pare yourselves  for  his  advent.'  Would  you  believe  it? 
the  wicked  fellows  laughed  at  me,  and  said  to  me, 
'  Mr.  Fellows,  we  will  take  the  risk,  and  if  you  do  not 
want  to  sell  us  the  books,  we  will  accept  them  as  a 
present.'  From  this  horn  of  the  dilemma  I  could  only 
escape  by  saying  to  them,  in  a  solemn  nasal  and  Puri- 
tanical tone,  '  My  young  friends,  I  perceive  that  you 
are  in  the  gall  of  bitterness  and  bonds  of  iniquity;  may 
the  Holy  Spirit  awaken  you  from  the  sad  delusion,, 
apathy  and  indifference  into  which  you  have  fallen. 
Say  no  more  to  me  about  books,  for  I  shall  have 
nothing  more  to  do  with  worldly  affairs,  for  during 
the  short  time  I  have  I  shall  use  in  making  prepara- 
tion to  meet  my  blessed  Lord  in  the  skies.'  The  young- 
rascals  laughed  and  left  me." 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  'Lish,  how  did  the  matter  end  when 
the  day  came  around  appointed  for  the  second  advent? "" 
20 


306  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

."Well,"  said  he,  "John  and  I  dressed  in  our  ascen- 
sion robes,  went  upon  the  house-top,  with  our  hymn- 
books  in  our  hands,  where  we  sang  songs  of  praise 
from  morn  till  night."* 

"  Well,"  said  I,  "  Fellows,  when  he  didn't  come, 
what  did  you  think?" 

"  I  thought,"  said  he  "  there  had  been  a  collision 
of  the  trains  on  the  heavenly  railroad,  but  we  felt  sure 
that  after  the  damage  was  repaired,  he  would  make 
his  appearance  on  the  next  train  coming  down." 

John  M.  Wilson,  although  he  fell  into  'this  delu- 
sion, is  a  truly  devout  and  religious  man.  One  day  as 
we  were  conversing  on  the  streets  of  Chicago  together, 
a  Jew  passed  us,  and  he  said  to  me:  "  There  goes  a 
Jew,  and  I  wish  to  say  to  you  that  I  feel  a  great  ven- 
eration and  respect  for  those  people,  for  they  kept  for 
thousands  of  years,  unmutilated,  the  Old  Testament 
Scriptures,  and  a  Jewess  was  the  mother  of  our  Savior, 
and  to-day  they  are  a  living  monument  of  divine  love, 
and  a  fulfillment  of  holy  prophecy.  I  will  not  and 
cannot  persecute  those  people." 

In  Judge  Wilson's  religious  notions,  he  is  extremely 
liberal  and  tolerant,  although  brought  up  and  edu- 
cated in  the  most  rigid  school  of  the  Puritans. 

My  acquaintance  with  him  commenced  in  1860, 
shortly  after  I  came  to  Chicago.  He  was  then  on  the 
bench,  as  I  believe  I  have  before  said.  Before  he  was 
elected  the  last  time  to  the  judgeship,  my  Democratic 


*  Judge  Wilson,  to  whom  we  read  the  above  sketch,  says  this  paragraph 
which  states  that  he  put  on  his  "  ascension  robes  and  went  upon  the  house- 
top," is  an  exaggeration  and  not  true;  and  that  he  th?n  construed  those 
passages  of  the  prophecies  relating  to  the  time  of  the  second  coming  of  our 
Savior  literally.  He  now  construes  them  figuratively.— PUBLISHER. 


JOHN  M.  WILSON.  307 

friends  made  a  combined  and  powerful  effort  to  defeat 
him,  in  which  effort  I  did  not  unite  or  participate. 
It  was  during  the  war,  and  by  an  arrangement  of  both 
parties,  a  convention  was  called  for  the  purpose  of 
forming  a  union  ticket  without  reference  to  party  poli- 
tics. I  was  elected  as  one  of  the  delegates  to  that  con- 
vention. My  friendship  and  preference  for  Judge  Wil- 
son were  well  known.  I  was  also  a  friend  of  Charles 
B.  Farwell,  who  was  running  for  clerk  of  the  county 
court.  The  preference  I  had  for  Wilson  I  had  made 
known  to  Farwell  and  his  friends,  yet  when  the  con- 
vention met,  and  the  Democrats  set  up  the  name  of 
Henry  G.  Miller,  a  good  lawyer  and  very  clever  man, 
I  discovered  that  some  of  Mr.  Farwell's  friends,  and  not 
a  few,  had  sold  out  for  his  benefit  to  the  friends  of  Mr. 
Miller.  I  did  all  that  was  in  my  power  to  defeat 
Miller's  nomination,  and  I  remember,  in  a  speech  I 
made  eulogistic  of  John  M.  Wilson,  after  recounting 
his  public  service  and  his  pure  administration  of  jus- 
tice while  he  had  sat  upon  the  bench,  pointing  over  to 
the  corner  of  the  house  where  Judge  Wilson  was  sit- 
ting, I  said:  "Will  you  turn  this  old  and  faithful 
horse,  after  he  has  v/orked  in  the  public  wagon  for 
years,  out  to  feed  upon  short  commons?  Shall  lie  be 
displaced  for  a  new  and  a  younger  man  ?  Shall  we 
cut  down  the  glorious  mountain  oak  that  has  resisted 
a  thousand  storms?  No!  4  Woodman  spare  that  tree, 
touch  not  a  single  bough.' ': 

Notwithstanding  all  my  efforts,  however,  John  M. 
Wilson  was  defeated  in  the  convention,  and  Henry 
G.  Miller  received  the  nomination;  but  the  whole 
ticket  nominated  by  this  convention  was  defeated. 


308  LINDEN'S  REMINISCENCES. 

There  was  such  great  dissatisfaction  at  the  nomina- 
tions made  that  an  independant  ticket  was  immedi- 
ately formed,  at  the  head  of  which  was  placed  the 
name  of  John  M.  Wilson,  and  I  remember  very  dis- 
tinctly that  he  was  elected  over  his  opponent,  Henry 
G.  Miller,  by  a  majority  of  over  three  thousand  votes. 
He  served  out  his  time  on  the  bench  and  retired  with 
great  honor  and  distinction,  and  the  love  and  respect 
of  all  the  able  and  worthy  members  of  the  bar  followed 
him  into  his  retirement.. 

It  is  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to  say  that  I  have  enjoyed 
the  esteem  and  friendship  of  such  an  able  lawyer  and 
Judge  as  John  M.  Wilson  from  the  hour  of  our  first 
acquaintance  to  the  present  time.  It  is  equally  pleasant 
to  me  to  state,  that  in  leaving  the  bench  he  falls  back 
upon  a  handsome  private  fortune.  He  has  only  two 
children,  a  son  and  a  daughter,  the  former  of  whom  I 
understand  is  a  very  promising  young  man. 

If  I  have  not  already  stated  it  so  as  to  impress  it 
indelibly  on  the  minds  of  my  readers,  I  wish  to  say 
now  that  I  never  met  any  lawyer  in  Northern  Illinois 
who  in  legal  learning  and  the  powers  of  analysis  was 
the  equal  of  Judge  Wilson.  He  was  never  verbose, 
and  his  decisions  were  short,  strong  and  to  the  point. 
He  is  a  man  of  the  kindest  and  tenderest  heart.  I 
remember  distinctly  at  the  time  when  Douglas  died 
(although  they  never  agreed  in  politics),  I  never  looked 
upon  so  sorrowful  a  face  as  his.  •  He  looked  like  a  man 
whose  heart  was  breaking,  and  I  noticed  the  tears  fre- 
quently gush  from  his  eyes  and  roll  down  his  cheeks. 

He  is  a  man  of  large  benevolence,  and  the  only  thing 
for  which  I  am  sorry  is  that  I  do  not  possess  the  mate- 


JOHN  M.  WILSON.  309 

rials,  which  are  undoubtedly  in  existence  if  I  had  them, 
to  give  him  a  larger  space  in  these  memoirs. 

I  hope  and  anticipate  that  this  notice  of  him  will 
reach  his  eyes  ere  he  leaves  his  earthly  home  for 
that  better  one  beyond  the  dark  river;  and  I  want  to 
say  to  him  that  it  makes  my  heart  glad  to  think  I  have 
so  good  and  bright  a  character  as  his  with  which  to 
adorn  these  pages.  I  do  not  intend  to  say  here  that 
John  M.  Wilson  is  the  only  good  and  pure  man  in  the 
world,  but  if  there  is  a  better  and  purer  one  it  has  not 
fallen  to  my  lot  to  meet  him.  It  was  generally  under- 
stood by  all  the  lawyers  while  he  was  on  the  bench  that 
he  was  not  only  the  ablest  of  our  judges,  but  that  he 
was  honest  and  unapproachable.  Corruption  and  brib- 
ery never  dared  to  show  themselves  in  his  presence. 
He  left  the  bench  with  clean  hands  and  a  pure  heart, 
and  when  he  leaves  this  earth  he  will  leave  a  name 
spotless  and  undefiled.  Slander  has  never  dared  to 
breathe  the  slightest  reproach  against  him,  or  fix  one 
spot  or  blemish  upon 'his  reputation  as  a  man,  a  judge 
or  a  lawyer.  I  now  take  my  leave  of  John  M.  Wilson, 
and  hand  him  over  to  posterity  as  one  of  .the  purest 
and  brightest  ornaments  of  the  bench  and  bar. 


310  LEADER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


ROBERT  S.  BLAOKWELL. 


i|HE  next  name  I  shall  introduce  is  that  of 
Robert  S.  Blackwell,  late  of  Chicago,  who  died 
some  seven  or  eight  vears  ago.  He  was  a 

O  v  O 

native  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  I  will  state  here 
that  all  the  natives  of  this  State  whom  I  have  known, 
or  nearly  all,  were  men  and  women  of  genius  and  tal- 
ent, and  Robert  S.  Blackwell  was  not  second  to  any  of 
them.  He  was  the  son  of  David  Blackwell,  a  learned 
and  eminent  lawyer  who  lived  at  Belleville.  He 
left  a  wife  and  some  three  or  four  children,  amongst 
whom  was  a  boy  older  than  "  Bob,"  but  Bob  being  the 
brightest  of  all  of  them,  his  mother  put  her  affairs 
into  his  hands,  and  gave  him  charge  of  the  children. 
He  bound  his  older  brother  to  a  trade,  and  he  himself 
studied  law  with  O.  H.  Browning  of  Quincy;  and  after 
he  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  became  a  partner  of  Mr. 
Minshall,  a  learned  and  respectable  lawyer  of  Rush- 
yille,  111.,  which  partnership  continued  for  a  good 
many  years,  and  until  Bob  married;  had  several 
children  born  to  him,  and  removed  to  the  city  of 
Chicago. 

Shortly  after  his  arrival  at  that  place  he  formed  a 
legal  partnership  with  Corydon  Beckwith,  now  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  lawyers  living  in  the  city  of 


ROBERT  S.  BLACKWELL.  311 

Chicago,  where  Bob  continued  to  live  and  practice  his 
profession  with  great  distinction  and  success  until  the 
day  of  his  death. 

Bob  was  at  home  in  nearly  every  department  of  the 
law,  but  more  especially  in  land  cases  and  tax  titles, 
upon  the  latter  of  which  he  wrote  a  most  able  work 
entitled  "Blackvvell  on  Tax  Titles,"  which  can  be 
found  in  the  library  of  every  respectable  lawyer  in  the 
United  States.  At  the  time  of  its  appearance  it  was 
received  by  the  bench  and  bar,  and  all  the  legal  reviews, 
with  universal  approbation.  If  Bob  had  never  said 
nor  written  anything  else,  this  work  alone  would  have 
secured  him  an  immortality  with  the  whole  legal  pro- 
fession. He  had  commenced  another  work  before  his 
death,  entitled  an  "  Abstract  of  the  Decisions  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,"  which  run  to  the  third  or 
fourth  volume,  when  poor  Bob  died  and  left  it  uncom- 
pleted. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  my  first  recollections 
of  Bob  go  back  to  1837,  at  Vandalia,  when  he  was  a 
small  lad  living  with  his  uncle,  Robert  S.  Blackwell, 
after  whom  he  was  named.  This  was  during  that 
notable  session  of  the  legislature  of  Illinois,  and  from, 
which  has  sprung  some  of  the  brightest  and  most  glo- 
rious names  that  blaze  and  sparkle  on  the  pages  of 
American  History.  These  names  are  to  be  found  in  the 
category  of  presidents,  senators  and  generals  who  have 
made- respectable  our  civil,  diplomatic  and  military  his- 
tory. When  shall  another  Lincoln  and  Douglas  make 
their  appearance?  When  shall  another  Democratic  ad-, 
ministration  make  its  appearance  which  shall  add  to. 
our  country  another  Kew  Mexico  and  California? 


312  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

Worthy  reader,  such  eras  and  men  are  like  angels' 
visits,  "few  and  far  between."  How  can  we  ever  do 
full  justice  to  that  old  and  noble  Democratic  party 
which  drew  the  rusty  sword  from  its  scabbard,  and 
cut  our  way  up  to  the  Golden  Gate  of  the  Pacific 
oceaji?  And  yet  to-day  we  have  a  miserable  set  of 
penny-a-liners  maligning  that  glorious  old  party,  and 
treating  it  as  effete,  defunct  and  fossil.  I  might  name 
some  of  them,  editors  and  others,  but  to  do  so  would 
give  them  a  place  in  this  respectable  history  of  mine, 
and  give  them  an  immortality  that  I  do  not  propose  to 
confer  upon  them.  They  may  treat  the  Democratic 
party  as  effete  and  dead;  but  permit  me  to  say  to  you, 
dear  reader,  it  is  not  dead,  but  has  only  been  sleeping; 
and  ere  long  it  will  rise  from  its  slumbers,  and  like  a 
giant  refreshed  by  sleep,  will  shake  the  earth  with  its 
thunders  and  rebukes  to  the  party  that  has  so  long 
abused  the  confidence  and  trust  reposed  in  them  by 
the  people. 

Bob  Blackwell  died  a  Democrat,  although  he  was 
an  original  Whig. 

He  was  a  man  of  eminent  social  qualities.  The 
only  fault  Bob  had  was  that  he  would  not  let  anybody 
but  himself  talk  when  he  had  the  floor,  and  the  truth 
is,  but  few  wanted  to  do  so,  for  no  man  could  entertain 
a  crowd  better  than  Bob.  He  was  the  finest  mimic 
I  ever  knew,  not  only  in  speech,  but  in  gesture  also. 
I  have  seen  him  imitate  the  walk  of  Josiah  Lamborn, 
who  had  a  short  leg,  and  he  would  do  it  so  exactly 
that  1  have  had  to  look  at  him  closely  to  see  whether 
he  himself  hadn't  one  short  leg. 

Judge  Murphy  has  told  me  of  some  of  Bob's  powers 


EGBERT  S.  BJ.ACKWELL.  313 

as  an  advocate.  And  here  let  me  say  by  way  of  intro- 
duction to  what  I  am  going  to  state,  that  Judge 
Murphy  believed  in  the  doctrine  of  psychology  as 
taught  at  this  present  day,  and  he  said  that  Bob  pos- 
sessed it  in  a  degree  beyond  any  man  he  had  ever  seen. 
"  Why,  sir,"  said  he,  "  let  him  get  close  up  to  a  jury  and 
wave  those  long  arms  of  his,  and  point  his  finger  at 
first  one  and  then  another  of  the  jury,  and  they  were 
utterly  powerless  to  get  away  from  the  conclusion  to 
which  Bob  desired  to  conduct  them." 

Judge  Murphy  told  me  that  in  a  case  of  murder 
tried  before  him,  Bob  appeared  for  the  defendant. 
"  And  I  tell  you,  sir,"  said  he,  "  if  there  ever  was  a 
case  of  murder  more  clearly  proved  up,  our  judicial 
history  does  not  record  it;  but  Blackwell  went  in  close 
to  the  jury,  and  by  his  psychological  powers  and  man- 
ipulations, took  possession  of  the  jury — utterly  erased 
from  their  minds  the  proofs  of  guilt — and  after  they 
retired,  in  about  ten  minutes'  consultation,  they 
returned  with  a  verdict  of  '  not  guilt}''.' " 

I  do  not  know  but  my  friend  Bob  deserves  a  larger 
space  here  than  I  have  given  him,  and  yet  I  do  not 
know  but  my  friendship  and  partiality  for  him  have 
caused  me  to  give  him  a  little  larger  space  than  he 
deserves. 

Bob  had  his  faults  and  frailties,  but  they  never  sank 
into  vices.  He  carried  sunshine  wherever  he  went, 
and  many  's  the  time  that  I  have  enjoyed  the  warmth 
of  his  genial  conversation  and  sociality. 

He  has  gone  to  his  God  who  made  him,  and  who 
bestowed  upon  him  gifts  not  often  given  to  other  men, 
and  whatever  the  theological  world  may  think,  I  wish 


314  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

to  say  here,  in  winding  up  my  recollections  of  Bob 
Blackwell,  that  in  my  opinion  God  never  created  such 
a  being  as  he  was  for  eternal  punishment;  and  1  believe 
to-day,  while  I  am  lingering  here  upon  these  low 
grounds  of  sorrow  and  sin,  he,  with  Lincoln,  Douglas, 
Sam.  McRoberts,  his  father,  and  Archie  Williams,  is 
walking  with  his  God  in  heaven,  where  I  trust  I  may 
some  day  meet  him,  and  for  the  present  I  bid  him 
farewell. 


SAMUEL  S.  HAYES.  315 


SAMUEL  S.  HAYES. 


|HE  next  person  I  intend  to  introduce  into 
these  pages  is  Samuel  S.  Hayes,  of  Chicago. 
My  acquaintance  with  him  commenced  some- 
time in  1840 — I  think  it  was  at  Carmi,  White  county, 
the  most  southern  county  on  my  circuit. 

S.  S.  Hayes  is  a  very  remarkable  man.  He  acquired 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  German  and  French 
languages  in  the  course  of  a  single  winter,  without  a 
tutor  or  instructor,  save  the  books  which  he  purchased 
for  that  purpose.  Bat  Webb  told  me  he  was  a  per- 
fect prodigy  in  the  acquisition  of  languages. 

I  do  not  know  at  what  precise  time  Mr.  Hayes  came 
to  the  bar,  but  I  think  it  was  somewhere  about  1846, 
but  I  cannot  speak  positively.  When  I  first  knew  him 
he  lived  in  Shawneetown.  I  think  he  was  not  fully 
grown  at  that  time.  He  came  up  from  Shawneetown 
to  Carrni  at  the  term  of  the  court  which  I  was  attend- 
ing there.  It  was  the  first  time  1  ever  saw  him.  I 
took  him  then  to  be  about  seventeen  years  of  age.  He 
was  introduced  to  me  by  my  friend  Henry  Eddy,  who 
told  me  privately  that  he  was  a  young  man  of  great 
promise,  which  in  after  life  I  found  to  be  true. 

Hayes  had  been  a  druggist,  as  I  understood  from 
himself,  but  he  finally  studied  law  and  settled  in  White 


316  LINDER'S  KEMINISCENCES. 

county,  Ills.,  and  represented  that  county  in  the  lower 
House  of  the  legislature  in  1846.  I  was  a  member 
of  that  body  at  that  time.  Our  relations  in  the  char- 
acter of  members  was  very  pleasant.  We  had  some 
little  difficulties  in  after  years  which  I  do  not  choose 
to  mention  here. 

Hayes  has  been  a  fortunate  and  prosperous  man. 
He  was  originally  a  Whig,  and  almost  worshiped  at 
the  shrine  of  Henry  Clay,  which  nearly  all  young  law- 
yers did  at  that  day;  but  finding  that  the  road  to  pre- 
ferment did  not  lay  in  that  direction,  he  turned  a 
political  sommersault  and  became  a  Democrat.  He  is 
now,  and  for  a  long  time  has  been,  Comptroller  of  the 
city  of  Chicago,  and  is  a  man,  I  understand,  of  fine 
financial  abilities. 

Mr.  Hayes  is  the  son-in-law  of  Col.  E.  D.  Taylor, 
still  living,  and  a  man  who  has  done  more  perhaps  to 
bring  about  the  success  of  the  Illinois  and  Michigan 
Canal  than  any  man  now  living. 

I  will  not  extend  my  remarks  any  further  on  S.  S. 
Hayes,  only  to  say  that  he  is  a  good  lawyer  and  a  self- 
made  man.  Though  his  education  was  liberal,  it  was 
acquired  through  his  own  ambition  and  industry.  He 
was  first  appointed  to  the  office  of  comptroller  under 
Frank  Sherman,  then  Mayor  of  the  city  of  Chicago. 
In  that  capacity  he  discharged  the  duties  thereof  to 
the  satisfaction  of  everybody,  I  believe. 

Mr.  Hayes  is  a  man  who  might  fill  any  diplomatic 
or  other  position  under  our  national  government  with 
credit  to  himself  and  advantage  to  the  country. 

I  ought  to  say  before  I  close  these  remarks,  that  Mr. 
Hayes  is  a  good  public  speaker  and  also  a  good  writer. 


THOMAS  J.  GATEWOOD.  •     317 


THOMAS  J.  GATEWOOD. 


|HE  next  name  I  propose  to  introduce  here  is 
that  of  Thomas  J.  Gatewood,  better  known  by 
the  name  of  "Jeif"  Gatewood.  I  became 
acquainted  with  him  at  Carmi,  111.,  on  my  first  trip 
around  my  circuit.  He  was  introduced  to  me  by  Col. 
A.  P.  Field.  This  was  in  1836.  Gatewood  lived  at 
Shawneetown,  and  was  an  eminent  lawyer,  and  known 
as  such  by  the  bar  all  over  the  State.  He  stood  in  the 
front  ranks  of  the  legal  profession.  I  have  incidentally 
alluded  to  him  in  the  sketch  I  have  given  of  Jephtha 
Hardin.  He  was  a  large  man,  portly  and  good  look- 
ing; had  as  fine  a  head  as  was  ever  placed  upon  any 
man's  shoulders.  I  frequently  met  him  at  Vandalia 
and  Springfield.  He  practiced  law  in  the  Supreme 
and  Federal  Courts  of  this  State,  and  no  lawyer  stood 
higher  with  the  court  than  Jeff.  He  was  for  a  good 
many  years  a  Senator  in  our  State  legislature.  He 
was  a  splendid  speaker,  and  would  have  risen  to  great 
national  distinction  had  not  death  cut  his  career  short 
in  the  very  prime  of  life,  he  not  being  over  forty  years 
of  age  at  the  time  of  his  demise.  He  had  a  very  fine 
voice,  which  was  full  of  melody.  He  was  remarkable 
for  the  originality  of  his  views,  borrowing  nothing 
from  books  or  men,  seldom  perpetrating  a  quotation, 


318  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

unless  when  he  told  a  story,  which  he  frequently  did, 
and  no  man  could  tell  a  better  one  than  Jeff.  He  was 
the  very  life  and  soul  of  every  social  and  convivial 
party  of  which  he  made  a  member. 

In  his  earlier  career  as  a  politician  Jeff  was  a  Whig, 
but  as  that  party  had  little  or  nothing  to  bestow  by 
way  of  preferment,  Jeff  finally  concluded  that  there 
was  richer  pasturage  on  the  other  side  of  the  fence,  so 
he  jumped  over,  expecting  to  feed  on  delicious  Demo- 
cratic clover.  The  Democrats  were  very  glad  to  num- 
ber Jeff  as  one  of  their  party,  but  they  did  not  seem 
to  be  in  any  haste  to  give  him  any  high  or  lucrative 
place  in  their  ranks. 

I  have  heard  a  good  story  told  of  Jeff,  which  runs  as 
follows :  Being  in  a  Democratic  caucus  at  Springfield, 
where  they  were  parceling  out  the  offices  amongst  the 
various  politicians  of  their  party,  they  forgot  to  name 
Jeff  as  one  of  them,  and  when  they  got  through  Jeff 
said  to  them:  "But  what  in  the  h — 1  are  you  going 
to  do  for  Jeffy  ? "  This  remark  struck  them  with  such 
force  that  they  changed  their  programme,  and  did  pro- 
vide for  Jeff. 

The  last  time  I  remember  to  have  seen  Jeff  was 
when  I  was  on  the  way  to  Kaskaskia  in  1841.  I  fell 
in  with  him  and  Field  at  some  little  town  about  half- 
way between  Charleston  and  Kaskaskia.  I  stopped 
at  the  hotel  where  they  were,  and  we  took  dinner 
together. 

Poor  Jeff !  he  had  his  faults,  but  they  were  not 
crimes.  I  am  not  the  man  to  unveil  them,  but  would 
rather  throw  the  broad  mantle  of  charity  over  them; 
my  maxim  being  "  Nihil  mortuis  nisi  bonum." 


THOMPSON  CAMPBELL.  319 


THOMPSON  CAMPBELL. 


[AM  going  to  introduce  here  to  my  readers  a 
name  which  I  have  long  hesitated  to,  lest  I 
should  not  be  able  to  do  him  full  justice.  I 
mean  the  late  Thompson  Campbell,  who  was  Secretary 
of  State  in  Illinois  under  Ford's  administration.  He 
was  a  rare  man,  as  the  London  hotel-keeper  said  of 
Curran  and  Barrington,  who  had  quizzed  the  Lon- 
don wits  in  the  characters  of  raw  Irishmen  for  over  a 
month  or  more,  which  had  greatly  increased  the  cus- 
tom of  the  landlord  and  added  largely  to  his  gains. 
After  they  had  got  tired  of  this  sport  they  one  day 
called  for  their  bills,  informing  friend  Boniface  that 
they  had  concluded  to  return  to  Ireland.  "  Gentle- 
men," said  he,  "  I  have  no  bill  against  you.  My  house 
has  prospered  more  during  your  short  sojourn  here 
than  it  ever  did  before,  and  without  intending  to  flat- 
ter you,  you  are  the  rarest  men  I  ever  saw,  and  you 
are  welcome  to  stay  as  long  as  you  want  to." 

They  declined  to  accept  the  invitation,  and  one  may 
well  imagine  the  astonishment  of  the  innkeeper  when 
they  informed  him  that  they  were  counselors  Curran 
and  Barrington  of  the  city  of  Dublin,  and  had  been 
playing  off  upon  the  London  wits  for  the  last  month 
or  more  in  the  characters  of  raw  Irishmen. 

The  reader  will  pardon  this  digression,  and  allow  me 


320  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

to  import  from  history  something  to  enliven   these 
pages  more  than  I  can  do  from  my  own  materials. 

Thompson  Campbell  was  a  genius  in  the  full  sense 
and  meaning  of  that  word.  He  was  full  of  fun  and 
humor,  and  his  satire  and  irony  cut  like  a  two-edged 
sword,  and  his  fault  was  that  he  was  not  particular 
whether  this  sword  pierced  a  friend  or  foe. 

My  acquaintance  with  Campbell  commenced  in 
1837,  at  St.  Louis,  when  we  traveled  together  on  a 
steamboat  to  Erie,  up  the  Illinois  river.  He  was  then 
but  a  mere  boy — not  over  seventeen  or  eighteen  years 
of  age — and  he  was  a  bright  and  beautiful  boy,  with 
the  finest  black  eyes  I  ever  saw.  His  was  a  face  pleas- 
ant to  look  on — genius,  fun,  wit  and  humor  played" 
like  lightning  all  over  it.  How  sad  to  think  that  it 
now  lies  cold  in  death!  From  the  day  of  our  first 
acquaintance  until  the  last  I  ever  saw  of  him  we  were 
devoted  friends.  I  met  him  in  1860,  at  Charleston, 
South  Carolina.  I  was  a  delegate  to  the  Democratic 
Convention  that  assembled  there  at  that  time  to  nom- 
inate a  President.  Campbell  was  there,  but  not  in  the 
character  of  a  delegate,  but  as  a  friend  of  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  in  which  friendship  we  perfectly  harmonized. 
I  started  from  Chicago  in  company  with  nearly  the 
.whole  Northwestern  delegation,  except  those  we  met 
with  in  passing  through  Indiana  and  Ohio,  amongst 
whom  \vas  that  genial,  witty,  and  little-big  man,  Sun- 
set Cox,  who  attempted  to  poke  some  fun  at  me  as  we 
crossed  the  Ohio  river,  and  he  actually  seduced  me 
into  making  a  speech  to  the  crowd  that  had  assembled 
there.  It  was  not  a  long  speech,  nor  a  very  good  one. 
The  reader  may  guess  the  reason  if  he  chooses. 


THOMPSON  CAMPBELL.  .  321 

We  went  by  Washington  City,  and  stopped  there 
a  clay  or  two,  and  visited  our  friend  Douglas,  at  his 
residence,  in  a  body,  and  interchanged  opinions  in 
reference  to  uniting  the  Northern  and  Southern  De- 
mocracy. Man}7  of  us  had  our  doubts  about  doing  so, 
but  Mr.  Douglas,  with  all  his  great  common  sense, 
upon  that  subject  was  perfectly  infatuated.  We  all 
told  him  that  such  men  as  Yancey  and  other  fire-eaters 
who  controlled  public  opinion  in  the  South,  were  very 
bitter  towards  him  in  consequence  of  his  not  letting 
Kansas  come  into  the  Union  under  the  Lecompton 
Constitution,  which  history  has  recorded  as  the  great- 
est fraud  ever  practiced  upon  a  free  people.  "Well, 
gentlemen,"  said  he,  "  let  the  politicians  do  their 
worst,  the  Southern  people  will  not  go  with  them ;  " 
and  went  on  to  show  us  from  information  he  had 
received  from  the  South  that  such  was  the  fact.  And 
would  you  believe  it?  he  convinced  us  all  that  he  .was 
right.  But  that  was  one  of  the  saddest  mistakes  that 
Stephen  A.  Douglas  ever  made,  for  he  had  not  more 
than  entered  the  Southern  States  than  we  began  to 
feel  that  the  South  was  lost  to  Douglas;  and  when  we 
got  to  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  we  found  the  hos- 
tile feeling  towards  him  at  fever  heat.  While  William 
L.  Yancey,  and  others  of  his  kidney,  addressed  the  vast 
crowd  that  gathered  nightly  around  the  Mills  House 
to  hear  their  inflammatory  speeches,  not  a  single 
friend  of  Mr.  Douglas  was  permitted  to  speak.  Sev- 
eral of  us  attempted  to  do  so,  but  they  drowned  what 
we  said  with  the  beating  of  drums  and  tin  pans,  and 
the  blowing  of  horns,  and  many  other  unearthly 
noises! 

21 


322  LINDEB'S  REMINISCENCES. 

Senator  Pugh,  from  Ohio,  and  myself,  made  speeches 
in  the  Hibernian  Hall,  but  our  only  auditors  were  the 
Northwestern  delegation.  About  the  first  man  I  met 
on  my  arrival  in  the  city  of  Charleston  was  my  old 
friend  Thompson  Campbell.  He  was  very  glad  to  see 
me,  and  I  was  equally  glad  to  see  him.  We  soon 
learned  that  the  Southern  sympathies  were  not  with 
us  Northern  delegates,  who  were  friendly  to  Mr. 
Douglas.  The  truth  is,  I  believe  they  disliked  him 
worse  than  they  did  Lincoln.  1  had  no  intercourse  on 
my  part  with  the  Southern  fire-eaters.  I  heard  sub- 
dued murmurs  of  civil  war  uttered  by  them  from  var- 
ious quarters.  They  evidently  tried  to  frighten  us, 
but  we  didn't  propose  to  be  frightened.  We  stopped 
there  for  over  two  or  three  weeks.  We  tried  every 
expedient  to  convince  our  Southern  friends  that  if  they 
did  not  unite  with  us  some  Northern  Abolitionist 
would  be  elected  President,  and  that  no  man  could 
foresee  the  consequences.  At  that  time  there  was 
not  a  man  north  or  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line 
that  even  dreamed  of  the  nomination  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln as  the  candidate  of  the  Republican  party.  After 
balloting  for  over  two  weeks,  without  nominating  any- 
body for  President,  we  adjourned  to  meet  at  Baltimore 

•  on  a  subsequent  day. 

On  my  return  home  to   Illinois,  I  had  the  pleasure 

•  of  traveling  in  company  with  the  subject  of  this  sketch. 
We  came  by  rail,  through  South  Carolina,  Georgia, 
Alabama  and  Tennessee,  to  Memphis.     We  had  several 
; Southern  fire-eaters  on  the  train,  and  so  intemperate 
^was  Campbell  in  his  remarks  that  I  was   very  fearful 
.that  he  would  stir  up  their  hot  blood  to  the  shedding 


THOMPSON  CAMPBELL.  323 

of  his;  but  they  seemed  rather  to  admire  than  be 
offended  at  anything  Campbell  said,  for  it  was  so  sea- 
soned with  wit  and  humor,  and  the  absence  of  all  fear 
upon  his  part,  that  it  chimed  in  with  the  notions  and 
opinions  of  tlfese  southern  knights.  He  would  fre- 
quently d — n  them,  and  tell  them  they  were  a  set  of 
d — d  fools,  and  that  Douglas  was  the  best  friend  they  had 
in  the  world;  that  they  themselves  had  advocated  the 
very  doctrines  for  which  he  contended,  and  he  quoted 
the  speeches  of  some  of  their  most  eminent  men  and 
the  resolutions  of  their  conventions  to  prove  it;  but 
they  took  no  offense  whatever  at  what  he  said.  The 
weather  was  extremely  hot,  and  Campbell  and  I  fixed 
us  a  sort  of  couch  upon  which  we  reposed  side  by  side. 
By  the  time  we  reached  Memphis  my  friend  Campbell 
was  exceedingly  sick. 

But  I  will  go  back  in  this  story  to  relate  a  very 
amusing  circumstance  that  occured  on  the  road  from 
Charleston  to  Augusta.  At  some  wayside  tavern  we 
stopped  to  take  dinner.  Thompson,  feeling  pretty 
good,  set  down  to  a  game  of  poker  with  some  gentle- 
men who  had  invited  him  to  take  a  part  with  them ; 
and  he,  taking  no  note  of  time,  and  being  somewhat 
successful  in  the  game,  permitted  the  train  to  move  off 
without  having  him  on  board,  leaving  his  trunk,  coat, 
vest  and  hat  on  board.  Hunkins,  of  Galena,  Sam 
Buckmaster  and  myself,  soon  discovered  that  Camp- 
bell was  left  behind.  At  the  first  station  where  we 
stopped  we  telegraphed  the  fact  back  to  where  we  had 
left  him.  We  lay  by  a  day  and  night  at  Augusta, 
that  he  might  overtake  us  there.  Eventually  he 
arrived,  with  an  old  dilapidated  stove-pipe  hat,  his  face 


324  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

covered  with  dust,  and  the  sweat  making  dirty  patches 
down  his  cheek,  and  when  he  arrived  and  we  received 
him,  he  burst  into  tears^— "  Did  any  man  ever  have 
such  friends  as  I  have?"  The  hotel -keeper  had  ready 
a  fine  lunch  of  green  turtle  soup,  of  which  we  all  par- 
took most  bountifully,  and  went  on  our  way  rejoicing, 
to  Memphis;  and  as  I  have  said  before,  when  we  got 
there  Campbell  was  quite  sick,  and  we  had  to  stay  there 
two  or  three  days  to  recuperate  him.  I  really  enter- 
tained serious  fears  as  to  his  recovery,  but  through 
good  physicians,  kind  nursing,  and  encouraging  con- 
versation, we  brought  him  through. 

I  will  ask  the  reader  to  allow  me  here  to  relate  a 
little  piece  of  fun  and  wit  upon  the  part  of  a  negro 
boy,  which  I  saw  and  heard  while  in  this  city.  This 
boy  was  about  fifteen  years  of  age;  he  was  driving  a 
one-horse  dray,  but  instead  of  a  horse  he  had  a  mule, 
and  the  mule  stopped  still  and  would  not  move  a  peg. 
The  negro  whipped  him  and  whipped  him,  and  hol- 
lered "get  up!  "  and  repeated  it  over  and  over  again, 
until  he  was  finally  exhausted,  and  leaning  back  lie 
addressed  his  mule  in  the  following  language:  "Feel 
very  proud,  don't  you?  I  suppose  you  forgot  that  your 
daddy  was  a  jackass,  hain't  ye?" 

Now  reader,  if  you  have  a  lively  perception  of  what 
constitutes  wit,  you  will  recognize  a  good  deal  of  it  in 
the  remark  of  this  little  negro. 

We  finally  got  Campbell  on  board  of  a  fine  river 
packet  and  landed  him  in  a  short  time  at  St.  Louis. 

If  my  readers  will  go  back  with  me  to  Charleston,  I 
will  relate  a  few  incidents  that  occurred  there,  not  un- 
worthy, perhaps,  of  being  recorded. 


THOMPSON  CAMPBELL.  325 

Charleston  is  one  of  the  oldest  cities  in  the  United 
States.  There  is  not  much  resemblance  in  the  manners 
and  habits  of  the  Northern  and  extreme  Southern  peo- 
ple. It  is  true  the  latter  are  warm-hearted  and  generous, 
even  to  a  fault,  but  lacking  in  the  calculation  and  pru- 
dence of  their  Northern  brethren.  This  was  easily  to 
be  observed  by  the  speeches  made  in  that  convention  by 
such  Hotspurs  as  Yancey  and  others,  et  id  omne  genus, 
and  our  cooler-headed  speakers  from  the  North.  I 
had  not  been  in  that  convention  over  three  days  till  I 
discovered  a  deep-rooted  hostility  and  burning  dislike 
to  Northern  men  and  statesmen.  We  did  everything: 

»/ 

in  our  power  to  compromise  with  them,  so  as  to  pre- 
vent the  cutting  up  and  dividing  of  the  Democratic 
party.  They  made  an  offer  to  us  that  we  might  select 
the  candidate  for  the  party  if  we  would  let  them  make 
up  the  platform  —  or  let  them  select  the  candidate, 
and  we  might  make  the  platform.  Inevitable  defeat 
awaited  us  in  the  acceptance  of  this  proposition.  If 
the}7  had  built  the  platform  we  should  have  had  to  stand 
on  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  the  Lecompton  Constitu- 
tion with  the  right  of  Southern  slaveholders  to  carry 
their  slaves  into  free  territory,  and  hold  them  there  as 
such  against  the  wishes  of  the  people  of  such  territories. 
With  such  a  platform  as  this,  we  could  not  have 
carried  a  single  electoral  vote  north  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line.  Had  we  given  them  the  candidate,  they 
selecting  such  a  man  as  William  L.  Yancev,  the  conse- 

CJ  «/     / 

quences  would  have  been  equally  disastrous,  for  we 
would  have  lost  the  whole  North  and  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  South.  The  division  in  the  Democratic 
party  at  this  convention  was  greatly  augmented  by  the 


326  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

countenance  given  to  the  exhorbitant  claims  of  the 
South  by  such  men  as  Benjamin  F.  Butler  and  Caleb 
Gushing.  They  succeeded  in  electing  Caleb  Gushing 
as  the  permanent  chairman  of  the  convention.  But- 
ler, as  I  have  always  understood,  was  sent  there  by  his 
constituents,  instructed  to  go  for  Stephen  A.  Douglas, 
and  most  nobly  did  he  fulfill  that  trust — by  voting 
fifty-seven  times  for  JeiF  Davis.,  and  never  casting  a 
single  vote  for  Douglas;  and  when  the  extreme  south- 
ern men  retired  from  the  convention,  and  held  a  caucus 
amongst  themselves,  in  which  they  resolved  to  hold  a 
convention  at  Richmond,  Ya.,  as  antagonistic  to  Bal- 
timore, to  which  place  a  majoritv  of  the  party  had  ad- 
journed, Caleb  Gushing  and  Benjamin  F.  Butler  were 
in  this  caucus — active  participants  in  all  its  doings, 
patting  such  men  as  William  L.  Yancey  on  the  back, 
and  encouraging  them  in  their  disloyalty  to  the  party 
and  the  Union.  My  readers  may  think  this  strange 
upon  the  part  of  these  two  men,  and  be  unable  to  find 
a- sufficient  motive  for  their  conduct,  but  I  never  had  a 
particle  of  difficulty — their  action  resulted  from  jeal- 
ousy and  hostility  to  Douglas.  They  are  both  ambi- 
tious men,  and  felt  piqued  that  so  young  a  man  as 
Douglas  should  have  such  rapid  growth,  and  cast  older 
men  like  themselves  into  the  shade.  Now,  reader,  just 
think  of  it.  That  this  man  Butler,  who  contributed 
so  largely  to  the  breaking  up  of  his  party,  and  bring- 
ing on  the  country  a  civil  war,  should  be  appointed 
manager  and  prosecutor  of  Andrew  Johnson,  the  most 
glorious  patriot  and  Union  man  of  the  nation;  a 
man  who  had  been  an  extreme  pro-slavery  man,  and 
voted  fifty-seven  times  for  Jeff  Davis,  as  I  have  before 


THOMPSON  CAMPBELL.  327 

said,  becomes  par  excellence  a  Union  man  and  Aboli- 
tionist after  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  But  sooner 
or  later  all  such  men  meet  their  reward,  and  he  has 
met  his.  Massachusetts  has  given  her  verdict  against 
him,  and  whatever  may  be  said  of  his  talents,  nobody 
entertains  any  respect  for  his  integrity,  and  he  is  now 
sunk  to  his  original  insignificance,  without  having 

«J  O  '  CJ 

any  place  in  the  heart  or  affection  of  a  single  honest 
man  in  this  nation.  Campbell's  comments  on  these 
two  men,  Gushing  and  Butler,  on  the  road  from 
Charleston  to  Memphis,  were  so  sarcastic  and  amusing 
that  the  Southern  men  on  board  the  cars  joined  as 
heartily  in  the  laugh  as  the  rest  of  us. 

To  give  the  reader  a  perfect  idea  of  Thompson  Camp- 
bell, I  must  go  back  to  an  earlier  period  and  pick  up 
what  I  have  left  behind.  As  I  have  said  before,  he 
had  been  Secretary  of  State,  and  he  at  one  time  was 
Representative  in  Congress  from  the  district  subse- 
quently represented  by  Elihu  Washburn,  his  home 
being  at  Galena.  I  forget  who  was  his  opponent  at 
the  time  he  ran  for  Congress.  Suffice  it  to  say,  he  was 
a  rabid  Abolitionist.  All  of  Campbell's  acquaintances 
who  lived  in  the  Southern  part  of  the  State  knew  that 
he  hated  the  Abolitionists  as  cordially  as  the  most 
Southern  man  in  the  Union.  Now  this  district  was 
the  darkest  in  the  State,  and  contained  within  it  more 
Abolitionists  than  any  other  district  in  the  State. 
Some  of  the  enemies  of  Campbell,  rank  Abolitionists,, 
addressed  him  through  the  public  press  a  series  of 
questions — such  as,  "Are  you  for  excluding  slavery 
from  the  territories,  and  for  abolishing  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia?"  "Are  yon  opposed  to  admit- 


328  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

ting  any  more  slave  States  into  the  Union?"  and, 
strange  to  say,  Campbell,  to  the  astonishment  of  many 
of  his  old  political  friends,  and  to  the  utter  dismay  and 
confusion  of  his  enemies  in  the  district,  who  had 
expected  to  entrap  him,  answered  all  their  questions 
just  as  the  rankest  Abolitionist  in  the  Nation  would 
have  answered  them ;  consequently  he  was  elected.  I 
asked  him  myself  while^  we  were  on  our  trip  from 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  to  Memphis,  if  at  the  time 
he  answered  those  queries  he  intended  to  redeem  any 
of  the  pledges  he  made  to  these  men  who  poked  at 
him  these  questions.  "  Not  the  first  one  of  them," 
was  his  answer;  "  they  laid  a  trap  for  me,  but  the 
black  rascals  fell  into  it  themselves,  and  I  hoisted  them 
with  their  own  petard." 

After  Campbell  had  served  out  his  term  in  Congress, 
he  became  exceedingly  poor  and  indigent,  but  Doug- 
las got  him  the  appointment  as  one  of  three  com- 
missioners of  land  claims  in  California.  While  acting 
in  that  capacity,  a  case  came  before  them  in  which 
millions  of  dollars  were  involved.  One  of  the  parties 
to  this  controversy,  perceiving  that  Campbell  possessed 
great  influence  with  his  colleagues,  took  him  aside  and 

O  O  ' 

proposed  to  give  him  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  in 
gold  if  he  would  resign  his  office  and  become  their 

CT  O 

lawyer,  and  that  they  would  count  him  down  sixty 
thousand  dollars  as  his  retaining  fee;  "  and  I'll  tell  you, 
Linder,"  he  said  to  me,  "  I  was  not  such  a  d— — d  fool 
as  to  refuse  to  take  it,  and  the  prettiest  sight  my  eyes 
ever  dwelt  on  was  the  pile  of  gold  they  counted  down 
to  me  in  twenty-dollar  pieces,  Just  think  of  it," 
said  he,  "  of  a  lawyer  getting  sixty  thousand  dollars 
in  gold  as  a  retainer! " 


THOMPSON  CAMPBELL.  S'29 

I  then  asked  him :  "  Thompson,  did  you  get  your 
other  forty  thousand  dollars?  and  if  so,  what  did  you 
do  with  your  money?  " 

"Yes  I  did,"  said  lie,  "  and  it  was  also  in  gold,  and 
I  sent  it  by  express  to  safe  hands  in  Philadelphia,  and 

d d  soon  followed  it  in  person.  One-half  of  it  I 

loaned  to  responsible  men  in  Philadelphia  at  ten  per 
cent  interest,  secured  by  deed  of  trust  on  unincum- 
bered  real  estate  worth  half  a  million  of  dollars.  Of  the 
balance  of  the  one  hundred  thousand,  I  gave  my  wife 
five  thousand,  and  kept  five  thousand  for  my  own  use. 
The  residue  of  the  forty  thousand  dollars  I  brought  to 
St.  Louis,  and  loaned  on  the  same  interest  on  the  same 
kind  of  securities  as  those  I  had  taken  in  Philadel- 
phia. This  interest  is  payable  semi-annually,  and 
now,"  said  he  to  me,  "  do  you  think  there  is  any  dan- 
ger of  my  ever  coming  to  want?" 

"I  don't  know,  Thompson,"  said  I,  "you  used  to 
be  rather  lavish  and  prodigal  with  your  funds." 

"Yes,  I  was;  and  you  remember  the  time,  Linder, 
when  the  members  of  the  legislature  at  Springfield 
had  to  raise  by  subscription  a  fund  to  pay  my  tavern 
bill,  and  send  me  and  my  family  home  to  Galena;  but 

that  will  never  occur  again,  for  I'll  be  d d  if  I 

haven't  become  one  of  the  stingiest  men  in  the  world. 
I  am  a  perfect  Shylock.  To  be  sure,  I  am  not  meanly 
little,  nor  do  I  propose  to  be  so  in  a  small  way;  but 
when  it  comes  to  making  a  big  grab,  I'm  always 
there." 

In  coming  across  the  country  from  Charleston  to 
Memphis,  we  stopped  and  lay  over  a  night  at  At- 
lanta, Georgia.  The  hotel  where  we  stopped  was  one  of 


330  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

the  best  kept  I  ever  saw;  and  an  incident  occurred  here 
which  I'll  venture  to  relate,  although  my  readers  may 
think  it  of  too  trifling  a  character  to  find  a  place  in 
these  pages.  I  noticed  a  very  black  negro  man  offici- 
ating as  waiter,  and  I  happened  to  be  within  hearing 
when  the  hotel-keeper,  his  master  and  owner,  asked 
him  for  the  loan  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  dollars.  '"Oh! 
certainly,  massa,"  said  he,  and  pulled  it  out  and  gave 
it  to  him.  After  the  landlord  retired,  Campbell  and  I 
called  the  negro  to  us  and  asked  him  how  it  happened 
that  he  was  loaning  money  to  his  master,  and  where  he 
got  the  money,  "  O,  gemmen,"  said  he,  "  I  bought  a 
ticket  in  the  lottery  and  drew  a  prize  of  ten  thousand 
dollars." 

"  Well,"  said  one  of  us,  "  Its  a  wonder  he  don't  take 
it  without  asking  it  as  a  loan,  for  by  the  laws  of  Geor- 
gia both  you  and  your  money  belong  to  him." 

"Yah!  Yah!  Yah!"  said  he;  "You  don't  under- 
stand my  massa;  he  be  too  good  a  man  for  dat." 

"  "Well,"  said  I,  "  Sambo,  does  he  pay  you  back 
these  loans?" 

"  Yes,  sah,  and  offers  me  ten  per  cent  interest,  but  I 
nebber  takes  it  and  nebber  will." 

"  Well,"  said  I.  again,  "  why  don't  you  purchase  your 
freedom  ? " 

After  another  negro  laugh  he  replied:  "O,  God 
bless  your  precious  heart,  how  can  I  be  any  freer  than 
I  am  now?  I  goes  when  I  pleases  and  comes  when  I 
pleases,  and  my  massa  never  makes  any  complaint;  I 
missed  him  when  he  was  a  little  child  and  massa  lubs 
me  and  I  lubs  him,  and  I  will  nebber  leave  him  wile 
I  lib,  so  long  as  he  is  willin'  to  keep  me." 


THOMPSON  CAMPBELL.  331 

Campbell  turned  to  me  and  remarked  significantly, 
"  I  wish  some  of  those  d — d  rabid  Northern  Aboli- 
tionists were  here  to  hear  what  that  nigger  says." 

I  have  been  rather  irregular  in  picking  up  the  inci- 
dents that  I  have  here  narrated  in  reference  to  Thomp- 
son Campbell.  I  have  not  spoken  of  an  affair  of  honor 
which  occurred  between  .him  and  another  brother 
member  of  the  convention  that  formed  our  State  Con- 
stitution of  1848,  to  settle  which  they  went  to  St. 
Louis  for  the  purpose  of  fighting  on  Bloody  Island; 
but  it  was  terminated  without  bloodshed,  how,  I  can- 
not say  exactly,  but  I  am  inclined  to  think  Campbell's 
opponent  backed  down. 

Campbell's  place  of  residence  up  to  1861  or  '62  was 
in  Chicago.  He  finally  returned  to  San  Francisco, 
California,  and  died  there  shortly  afterwards;  and 
after  all  the  vicissitudes  of  his  life  left  his  family  in 
easy  and  pleasant  circumstances. 

If  I  were  going  to  make  a  man,  as  Lincoln  once  said 
to  me  in  reference  to  a  particular  acquaintance  of  ours, 
I  don't  know  as  I  should  make  exactly  such  a  man  as 
Thompson  Campbell,  but  for  wit,  humor  and  sarcasm 
it  would  be  a  difficult  matter  to  improve  upon  what 
God  Almighty  did  for  him;  and  although  I  have  often 
felt  the  edge  of  his  sarcasm,  his  company  and  society 
were  always  very  agreeable  to  me.  He  has  gone'  to 
his  last  home,  and  he  went  in  the  very  prime  of  his 
life.  His  faults  were  not  grievous,  and  his  talents  and 
genius  flashed  over  them  like  lightning  when  it  plays 
across  the  clouds  of  heaven.  I  do  not  know  of  a  single 
man  that  I  can  now  call  to  mind  within  the  scope  of 
my  memory,  with  whom  to  compare  Thompson  Camp- 


332  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

bell.  I  never  saw  a  man  exactly  like  him,  or  that  even 
resembled  him.  He  was  a  good  lawyer,  a  very  tine 
and  interesting  speaker,  and  possessed  of  a  pungency 
of  wit  that  burnt  like  lunar-caustic,  and  when  he  under- 
took to  demolish  one  of  his  victims,  there  was  peculiar 
play  of  feature  that  lighted  up  his  countenance  that 
told  of  the  thunderbolt  that  was  about  to  be  launched. 
To  say  that  Thompson  Campbell  was  a  very  great  man 
or  statesman,  or  even  lawyer,  would  perhap's  be  saying 
too  much,  but  I  can  say  in  the  English  sense  of  the 
word,  he  was  the  cleverest  man  I  ever  knew.  A  ^New 
Englander  would  say  he  was  the  smartest  man.  The 
reader  will  please  give  to  the  word  smart  a  nasal  and 
Puritanical  accent. 

I  must  now  leave  the  name  of  Thompson  Campbell 
to  my  kind  and  charitable  readers,  with  whose  mem- 
ory I  entreat  them  to  deal  as  kindly  and  leniently  as  I 
trust  they  will  with  mine  when  I  am  gone.  He  lies 
sleeping  in  the  land  of  flowers.  May  the  grass  be 
ever  green  and  fresh  upon  his  grave,  is  the  last  tribute 
that  an  old  friend  pays  to  his  memory. 


GUEDON  S.  HUBBARD.  333 


GUEDOK  S.  HUBBAED.  » 


1URDON  S.  HUBBAED,  one  of  tlie  oldest 
citizens  of  Northern  Illinois,  came  to  the 
West  about  1818,  and  settled  as  an  Indian 
trader  at  Hennepin,  but  his  business  frequently 
brought  him  to  Chicago.  He  is  now  seventy-four 
years  of  age,  and  one  of  the  best  preserved  men  I 
know  of  in  the  whole  circle  of  my  acquaintance.  He 
was  a  member  of  the  lower  House  of  the  General 
Assembly  of  Illinois  in  1832,  and  introduced  the  first 
railroad  bill  ever  presented  to  that  body.  It  was  a  bill 
intended  to  take  the  place  of  the  canal.  He  carried  it 
through  his  House  by  a  majority  of  sixteen  votes,  but 
it  failed  in  the  Senate  by  one  vote,  being  the  casting 
rate  of  the  Lieutenant  Governor,  Zadock  Casey.  He 
was  afterwards  one  of  the  commissioners  of  the  Illi- 
nois and  Michigan  Canal,  and  contributed  perhaps  as 
much  as  any  other  man  to  give  character  and  success 
to  that  work.  My  acquaintance  with  Gurdon  S.  Hub- 
bard  commenced  in  1836  and  '37,  at  old  Vandalia.  He 
was  in  attendance  upon  the  legislature  then  in  session 
at  that  place,  where  he  had  some  axes  to  grind,  but 
what  they  were  I  do  not  ndw  remember.  I  know  that 


334  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

he  and  others  who  were  well  acquainted  with  the  Indian 
character  and  habits,  greatly  amused  us  members  by  j  er- 
forming  the  Indian  war  dance,  and  I  know  that  they  did 
it  with  great  exactitude,  because  I  have  since  seen  a  part 
of  the  tribe  of  Pottawatomies  perform  the  same  dance, 
and  not  any  better  than  Gnrdon's  party  performed  it. 
The  truth  is,  one  was  an  exact  counterpart  of  the  other. 
All  of  Gurdon's  party  understood  the  Indian  dialect, 
and  could  speak  it  as  well  as  an  Indian  chief.  Hub- 
bard  was  born  in  one  of  the  New  England  States,  and 
received  all  the  education  that  he  ever  got  in  his  na- 
tive State.  He  removed  West  at  a  very  early  day,  and 
became  (as  I  have  said  before)  an  Indian  trader  at 
Hennepin. 

He  is  a  man  possessing  some  very  noble  traits  of 
character;  is  generous  to  a  fault,  and  self-sacrificing  in 
his  nature,  as  an  evidence  of  which  I  will  relate  a  cir- 
cumstance that  occurred  a  good  many  years  ago,  which 
I  heard  from  a  number  of  his  acquaintances,  and  finally 
had  it  confirmed  from  his  own  lips.  He  was  going 
up  the  Ohio  river  on  a  steamboat  when  a  small  boy, 
some  six  years  old,  fell  overboard  into  the  river,  and 
'the  mother  of  the  boy  was  perfectly  frantic,  as  was 
also  the  father.  Thei  r  names  were  Linton.  Hubbard 
didn't  wait  a  moment,  but  threw  off  his  overcoat  and 
jumped  in  after  the  boy.  The  boat  couldn't  be  stopped 
for  some  time,  and  got  at  least  a  mile  above  where  the 
boy  fell  overboard.  Hubbard  succeeded  in  grasping 
the  boy  by  the  ankle  as  he  was  going  down  for  the 
last  time.  He  held  him  aloft  and  turned  him  over  so 
as  to  let  the  water  run  out  of  his  mouth,  at  the  same 
time  supporting  himself,  as  he  told  me,  by  treading 


GUKDON    S.  HUBBARD.  335 

water  until  the  boat  turned  around  and  came  down 
and  picked  them  up,  the  boy  being  to  all  appearance 
dead.  Hubbard  himself  was  greatly  exhausted,  but 
Doctor  Fithian,  his  brother-in-law,  was  on  board,  and 
had  restoratives  and  warm  blankets  prepared  for  the 
two  sufferers,  and  they  were  soon  revived;  and  when 
Hubbard  awoke  to  consciousness,  it  was  to  find  the 
mother  of  the  boy  embracing  him  and  weeping  like  a 
child,  the  father  standing  by  and  weeping  also.  They 
chano-ed  the  name  of  the  bov,  and  called  him  after 

O  •*  ' 

Mr.  Hubbard.  "Whenever  the  mother  met  him  on  the 
boat  she  would  burst  out  crying.  This  occurrence 
went  the  rounds  of  all  the  newspapers  of  the  nation. 

My  acquaintance  with  Gurdon  S.  Ilubbard  has  con- 
tinued at  intervals  from  its  commencement  until  the 
present  time.  Onr  relations  have  been  of  a  very 
friendly  character.  He  has  had,  as  I  have  understood, 
many  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  going  down  at  one  time 
and  up  at  another. 

My  readers  will  perhaps  remember  the  sad  tragedy 
of  the  sinking  of  the  Lady  Elgin,  which  boat  was  owned 
by  Gurdon  S.  Hubbard.  If  my  memory  serves  me, 
some  three  hundred  lives  were  lost  on  that  occasion, 
among  whom  were  some  of  the  most  esteemed  citizens 
of  Milwaukee  and  the  Northwest,  but  the  greater  num- 
ber of  those  that  perished  were  citizens  of  Milwaukee. 
Upon  that  occasion,  after  the  news  of  the  disaster 
came  to  hand,  Gurdon  S.-  Hubbard  displayed  his  usual 
energy  and  humanity.  He  put  in  requisition  all  the 
means  he  could  command  to  save  the  lives  of  those 
who  were  alive  and  afloat  on  the  lake,  and  to  gather 
up  the  bodies  of  those  who  drifted  ashore  for  miles 


336  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

and  miles  above  Chicago.  Immediately  after  the  news 
of  the  loss  of  the  Lady  Elgin  had  reached  Chicago, 
Mr.  Hubbard  chartered  a  special  train  of  cars,  upon 
which  he  placed  life-boats,  ropes  and  other  materials 
for  saving  life,  used  in  wrecking,  and  proceeded  without 
a  moment's  delay  with  a  party  of  friends  to  the  village 
ofWinnetka,  about  sixteen  miles  north  of  Chicago, 
where  the  scene  of  horror  beggared  description.  The 
lake  was  at  that  point  covered  with  the  bodies  of  the 
survivors  who  had  managed  thus  far  to  escape  a  watery 
grave  by  clinging  to  the  remnants  of  the  wreck,  but 
the  waves,  which  were  running  mountain  high,  would 
dash  them  in  to  the  serf,  where  they  would  lose  their 
rafts  and  sink  within  a  hundred  yards  of  the  shore, 
never  to  rise  on  earth  again.  Hubbard  made  several 
Attempts  to  launch  the  life-boats,  but  the  waves  were 
running  so  high  that  they  were  instantly  thrown  back 
onto  the  beach.  Despairing  of  all  other  means,  IIB 
took  a  coil  of  rope  and  tying  one  end  around  his  body, 
he  plunged  into  the  serf,  and  when  he  had  secured  a 
hold  on  one  of  these  survivors,  those  on  the  beach 
would  draw  in  the  line,  and  in  this  way  Mr.  Hubbard 
saved  over  forty  human  lives  from  a  watery  grave; 
and  he  did  not  leave  off  this  method  of  saving  lives 
until  he  was  completely  exhausted. 

There  are  doubtless  many  incidents  in  the  life  of 
Gurdon  S.  Hubbard  tha.t  would  add  greatly  to  the  in- 
terest my  readers  might  takejn  these  memoirs  were  I 
in  possession  of  them,  for  he  was  a  frontier's  man  that 
came  to  Chicago  before  it  had  arisen  to  the  dignity  of 
village.  As  I  have  said  before,  he  is  now  over  seventy- 
four  years  of  age,  a  well-preserved  man,  and  bids  fair 


GURDON  S.  HTTBBARD. 


337 


to  live  some  fifteen  or  twenty  years  yet  to  come.  His 
hair  has  but  few  threads  of  silver  running  through  it, 
and  he  has  all  the  vivacity  that  he  possessed  some  forty 
years  ago,  when  our  acquaintance  first  commenced. 
He  can  be  found  any  day  at  his  office,  as  busy  as  a 
bee. 


22 


338  LISDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JOHE"  WEKTWOKTH. 


HE  next  name  that  I  shall  introduce  is  that  of 
John  Wentworth,  better  known  as  "Long 
John."  To  those  who  know  him  and  have 
seen  him  personally,  I  need  not  say  that  he  is  a  giant  in 
stature.  He  is  six  feet  six  or  eight  inches  high,  and 
if  Stephen  A.  Douglas  obtained  the  sobriquet  of  the 
"  Little  Giant,"  "  Long  John,"  in  physical  proportions 
at  least,  should  be  called  the  "Big  Giant  of  Illinois." 
An  old  citizen  of  Chicago  told  me  that  the  first  time 

•  o 

he  saw  Wentworth  he  was  in  the  midst  of  a  crowd 
that  had  convened  around  an  old  brick  hotel  located 
on  Lake  street,  Chicago,  "and,"  said  he,  "he  towered 
so  far  above  the  heads  of  the  crowd  that;  I  really  thought 
that  it  was  some  man  on  horseback,  and  I  said  to  a 
friend  at  my  side:  'what  is  that  fool  doing  on  horse- 
back in  the  midst  of  such  a  crowd  as  this?'  :  His 
friend  replied:  "  He  is  not  on  horseback;  I  know  him 
—that  is  Long  John  "Wentworth." 

Long  John  came  to  this  State  at  a  very  early  day, 
and  commenced  his  public  career  as  editor,  and  pro- 
prietor of  a  paper  entitled  The  Chicago  Democrat. 
He  was  at  that  time  a  Democrat,  and  so  continued 
-for  many  years,  until  the  Republican  party  arose, 


JOHN  WENTWORTH.  339 

when  he  was  among  the  earliest  to  attach  himself 
thereto.  While  a  Democrat,  he  was  elected  to  Con- 
gress from  Hie  district  including  Chicago,  which 
district  then  extended  as  far  south  as  Danville,  Illi- 
nois, and  he  represented  that  district  for  many 
years  during  his  Democracy,  and  he  has  since  repre- 
sented it  as  a  Republican.  John  Wentworth  while  in 
Congress  made  no  contemptible  figure  there.  He  was 
emphatically  a  working  member — was  noted  for  his 
hostility  to  extravagance,  and  was  a  perfect  terror  to 
the  treasury  rats  and  all  the  public  thieves  and  pecu- 
lators on  the  treasury,  who  were  wont  to  congregate 
about  Washington  City,  like  buzzards  around  some 
dead  and  putrid  carcass.  He  has  been  twice  mayor  of 
the  city  of  Chicago,  and  while  holding  that  office  he 
was  an  equal  terror  to  the  thieves  and  those  who  desired 
to  feed  and  fatten  upon  the  city  treasury.  Whatever 
may  be  said  of  John  Wentworth  in  other  respects,  it 
may  be  said  in  his  praise,  what  can  be  said  of  but  fevi 
other  men,  that  during  his  long  official  career  he  never 
touched  the  public  moneys,  except  to  dispose  of  them 
according  to  law,  and  that  with  great  frugality  and 
economy.  When  the  Republican  party  became  cor- 
rupt, John  forthwith  withdrew  from  it,  and  gave  effi- 
cient aid  in  starting  what  was  called  the  Citizens'  Party 
of  Chicago,  which  overthrew  that  dynasty  in  that  city. 
I  shall  never  forget  a  speech  I  heard  him  make  in 
Farwell  Hall  at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign 
between  the  citizens  and  Republican  party.  He  came 
to  the  stand  without  introduction,  which,  though 
usual  on  such  occasions,  he  would  not  allow,  and  in 
his  case  was  certainly  unnecessanr,  for  there  was  cer- 


340  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

tainly  not  a  man,  woman  or  child  in  the  city  of  Chicago 
to  whom  Long  John  was  not  known.  His  name  has 
become  a  household- word.  When  he  took  his  place  on 
the  stand  he  stood  silent  for  at  least  a  minute,  turn- 
ing his  face  from  one  side  of  the  audience  to  the  other, 
which  filled  that  vast  hall  to  repletion,  then  opened 
his  remarks  with  the  following  words:  "Thou  shalt 
not  steal,"  in  a  voice  as  solemn  as  that,  we  may  sup- 
pose in  which  Moses  spoke  when  he  first  announced 
this  portion  of  the  decalogue  to  the  children  of  Israel. 
He  then  went  on  in  the  most  scathing  style  to  recount 
the  misdeeds,  shortcomings  and  broken  promises  of 
the  Republican  party.  "  Now,"  said  he,  tk  fellow  citi- 
zens, the  Republican  party  in  its  origin  was  honest 
and  pure,  and  I  believe  from  my  heart  that  it  saved 
the  Union ;  and  while  it  was  pure  and  honest,  I  stood 
by  it,  and  supported  it,  and  would  be  with  it  to-night 
had  it  continued  so;  but  the  long  possession  of  power 
has  corrupted  it,  and  it  has  fallen  from  its  first  estate." 
"  "Why,"  said  he,  "  some  of  my  friends  have  asked  me, 
*  Will  you,  John  Wentworth,  one  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Republican  party,  ruthlessly  tear  it  down?'"  and 
drawing  himself  up  to  his  full  height,  he  said,  with  an 
emphasis  I  never  shall  forget,  "  Better  a  thousand 
times,  fellow  citizens,  that  it  should  be  torn  down  than 
rot  down."  This  remark  was  received  with  a  perfect 
storm  of  applause. 

No  man  has  said  much  better  things  than  John 
Wentworth,  orally  and  with  his  pen.  I  recollect  read- 
ing in  the  Chicago  Democrat  (which  I  have  before 
stated  was  edited  by  Wentworth),  after  Bob  Wilson, 
of  the  recorder's  court,  had  been  abusing  him  for  weeks, 


JOHN  WENTWOKTH.  341 

not  leaving  out  a  single  abusive  adjective  in  the  Eng- 
lish language,  an  editorial  of  Long  John's,  which  said, 
in  an  apparently  good-natured  way,  in  substance  as 
follows: 

"  I  don't  wish  my  friends  to  be  seriously  offended 
at  the  remarks  of  my  old  friend  Bob  Wilson.  Bob 
once  belonged  to  me,  and  never  did  I  have  a  more 
faithful  servant,  but  they  bought  him  away  from  me, 
and  have  at  present  got  possession  of  him.  But  never 
mind,  I  shall  get  him  back  again;  and  as  the  boy  said 
about  his  monkey  to  a  gentleman  whom  his  monkey 
had  attempted  to  bite  (when  asked  by  the  man  what 
sort  of  a  d — d  animal  he  was),  'he  is  a  very  good 
monkey,'  said  he,  *  and  not  half  as  bad  as  you  think 
he  is,  for  when  I  hold  him  he  will  bite  and  scratch 
you,  but  if  you  hold  him  he  will  bite  and  scratch  me'; 
and  so  with  my  old  friend  Bob.  .When  I  had  him  in 
my  keeping,  he  did  valuable  service  for  me  in  biting 
and  scratching  rnv  enemies.  Never  mind,  I'll  have 

O  **  * 

him  ao;ain  before  lon^." 

O  O   - 

I  shall  never  forget  the  torrent  of  abuse  that  my  old 
friend  Bob  heaped  upon  Long  John  on  account  of  this 
article  in  his  newspaper,  but  nevertheless  it  had  a  tel- 
ling effect  upon  the  public  mind,  the  worst  of  which 
fell  to  the  share  of  my  friend  Bob. 

I  shall  relate  another  circumstance  in  reference  to 
Wentworth,  which  occurred  at  McCormick's  Hall 
some  two  years  ago,  which  was  the  last  speech  I  ever 
heard  him  make.  He  and  I  were  the  only  speakers 
on  that  occasion.  He  compared  the  Republican  party, 
which  he  said  had  used  the  war  to  catch  votes,  to 
an  old  man  who  had  been  washed  over  a  mill-dam  and 


S42  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

drowned.  One  of  his  near  neighbors  discovering  the 
fact,  reported  it  to  his  wife,  and  told  her  in  a  very  solemn 
strain  that  her  husband  was  drowned,  and  finding 
his  abdomen  very  much  swollen,  they  had  taken  the 
liberty  of  cutting  him  open,  and  had  found  him  full 
of  living  eels.  "  Gracious  alive,"  said  she,  "  bring  the 
eels  to  me  and  I  will  skin  them  and  cook  them,  and 
set  the  old  man  and  catch  some  more/' 

"  Fellow  citizens,  this  eel-trap  of  the  Republican 
party  has  been  set  rather  too  often,  and  I  think  they 
have  caught  their. last  eel." 

John  and  I,  on  that  occasion,  really  made  old-fash- 
ioned Jeffersonian,  democratic  speeches,  which  brought 
down  upon  us  the  denunciations  of  a  certain  paper  in 
the  city  of  Chicago,  charging  us  with  being  antiquated 
fossils,  and  at  least  a  thousand  years  behind  the  times; 
but  public  opinion  has  thoroughly  disarmed  the  editor 
of  that  paper. 

As  John  Wentworth  is  a  public  character  and  wide- 
ly known,  I  deem  it  unnecessary  here  to  say  any  more 
about  him.  I  have  only  related  such  facts  and  anec- 
dotes as  the  grave  and  dignified  historian  might  pass 
by,  thinking  them  beneath  his  notice  and  unworthy  of 
being  recorded,  but  I  have  thought  them  necessary  to 
a  full  understanding  of  Wentworth's  talents  and  char- 
acter. 


JOHN  A.  LOGAN.  343 


JOHK  A.  LOGAN. 


1IIERE  wish  to  introduce  Gen.  John  A.  Lo- 
gan, whose  name  and  fame  are  so  well  known 
to  the  American  people  that  it  would  seem 
like  an  act  of  supererogation  to  give  him  a  place  in 
these  memoirs;  but  I  was  acquainted  with  his  father, 
who  was  a  great  personal  and  political  friend  of  mine 
— old  Dr.  Logan— with  whom  I  served  in  the  legis- 
lature in  1836  and  '37.  He  and  I  were  both  members 
of  the  same  House,  and  no  man  took  a  more  active 
part  in  my  election  as  Attorney-General  than  Dr.  Lo- 
gan. I  therefore  feel  that  I  owe  it  to  his  memory  to 
say  something  here  of  his  distinguished  son,  one  of  our 
present  Senators  in  Congress. 

My  acquaintance  with  the  General  commenced  m 
1847  or  '48,  at  Springfield.  He  was  then  but  a  mere 
stripling,  but  a  very  bright  and  promising  one.  He 
commenced  his  political  career  as  a  member  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  in  the  Illinois  Legislature, 
from  one  of  the  southern  counties  of  the  State.  He 
had  scarcely  warmed  his  seat  when  he  opened  upon 
some  of  the  exciting  topics  of  the  day,  which  might 
remind  my  readers  of  what  an  English  traveler  and 
writer  said  about  our  young  Americans.  He  said  the 


34:4:  LINDEE'S  REMINISCENCES. 

first  word  a  boy-baby  lisped  was  "Mr.  Speaker" 
meaning  that  we  were  all  born  politicians. 

Subsequent  to  the  time  of  his  membership  in  the 
legislature,  he  represented  one  of  the  southern  districts 
of  the  State  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  for 
several  successive  sessions.  During  all  this  time  John 
was  a  flaming  Democrat,  and  no  man  hated  an  Aboli- 
tionist more  than  he.  His  sympathies  were  all  with 
the  Southern  people,  which  even  lasted  up  to  and  be- 
yond the  commencement  of  our  late  civil  war.  Rumor 
has  said  that  he  induced  one  of  his  brothers-in-law  to 
join  the  Southern  army,  promising  that  he  would  raise 
a  regiment  and  soon  follow  him.  However  that  may 
be,  John  cast  his  lot  with  the  Nortt^and  became  ulti- 
mately one  of  our  Major-Generals,  where  he  did  good 
service  and  distinguished  himself  as  one  of  our  bravest 
fighting  generals. 

I  do  not  propose  to  give  here  his  career  as  a  war- 
rior and  a  soldier;  that  has  already  been  done  much 
better  than  I  can  do  it,  by  others  who  have  written  a 
history  of  that  war,  in  which  John's  gallantry  as  a 
soldier  and  skill  as  a  general  have  been  fully  recorded. 
I  will  simply  content  myself  by  saying  that  he  was 
one  of  our  generals  at  the  taking  of  Vicksburg,  and 
was  also  in  the  bloody  battle  of  Shiloh,  and  other 
memorable  engagements,  where  he  covered  himself 
with  glory  and  honor. 

The  people  of  our  State  have  not  forgotten  his  ser- 
vices in  the  Union  cause,  but  have  rewarded  him  by 
making  him  one  of  our  Senators  in  Congress. 

In  1858,  in  the  Senatorial  campaign  between  Doug- 
las and  Lincoln,  in  which  I,  as  my  readers  know,  took 


JOHN  A.  LOGAN. 

an  active  part  for  Douglas,  we  met  John  A.  Logan  at 
Chester,  on  the  Mississippi,  where  he  and  I  both  made 
speeches  in  favor  of  Mr.  Douglas.  From  there  we  went 
to  Cairo,  where  Logan  and  I  both  spoke  after  Mr.  Doug- 
las. My  recollection  is  that  Logan  went  with  us  from 
there  to  Jonesboro, where  we  met  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  that 
being  one  of  the  places  fixed  upon  for  their  joint  debate; 
but  I  don't  remember  that  Logan  made  any  speech  at 
this  place.  I  think  he  did  not,  for  the  time  was  princi- 
pally occupied  by  Lincoln  and  Douglas;  and  after  them 
by  Col.  Dougherty  and  myself,  we  being  on  different 
sides.  John  A.  Logan  continued  a  Democrat  and  an 
extreme  Southern  man  in  his  sympathies  up  to  the 
secession  of  the  Southern  States,  and  when  Mr.  Douglas 
made  his  patriotic  speech  at  Springfield,  for  which  the 
Republicans  so  lauded  him,  in  which  he  said  "  There 
were  now  but  two  parties — Patriots  and  Traitors,"  John 
A.  Logan  was  there,  and  took  such  mortal  offense  at  the 
speech  of  Douglas,  that  when  he  met  him  on  the  streets 
he  actually  refused  to  shake  hands  with  him.  Some  six 
months  or  a  year  after  this  time,  we  may  date  the 
commencement  of  the  change  of  Logan's  sentiments 
in  reference  to  the  controversy  between  the  North  and 
South.  What  share  his  appointment  as  general  in  our 
army  had  to  do  with  this  change,  I  will  not  undertake 
to  say.  If  his  previous  course  was  a  grievous  offense, 
his  subsequent  career  has  amply  condoned  it.  Every 
man  must  be  allowed  the  privilege  of  changing  his 
views,  politics  or  religion,  when  lie  finds  himself  in  an 
error,  and  it  is  not  right  to  assign  improper  motives 
for  a  man's  course  when  there  are  higher  and  purer 
one's  which  charity  can  discover;  and  with  that  charity 


LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


which  I  have  always  demanded  for  myself,  I  am 
willing  to  allow  most  cheerfully  that  Gen.  Logan,  in 
changing  his  views,  was  governed  by  high  and  patri- 
otic motives.  With  this  remark,  I  leave  him  in  the 
hands  of  the  historian  and  to  posterity,  by  whom  more 
ample  justice  will  be  done  him. 


JOHN  T.  STUAET.  347 


JOHN"  T.  STUART. 


|OHN  T.  STUART,  of  Springfield,  111.,  I  pro- 
pose now  to  introduce  to  my  readers.  I  deem 
it  impossible  to  present  them  witli  the  name 
of  a  worthier  or  better  man.  He  was  a  Represen- 
tative in  Congress  from  the  district,  including  Spring- 
field, that  extended  as  far  north  as  the  line  dividing 
Wisconsin  from  Illinois.  I  remember  that  in  1838 
Douglas  was  a  candidate  against  him,  but  his  good 
star  was  not  then  in  the  ascendant,  and  consequently 
Stuart  was  elected  and  Douglas  defeated.  Doug- 
las would  have  been  elected  had  it  not  been  for  a 
rascally  contrivance  of  old  Jim  Turney,  who,  pretend- 
ing to  be  a  friend  of  Douglas,  got  the  Irish  on  the  canal 
to^ote  for  "John  A.  "Douglas,"  "James  A.  Douglas," 
and  every  other  Douglas  you  might  imagine  except  the 
right  one  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  Of  course  all  these 
votes  were  counted  out,  and  Douglas  was  cheated  of  his 
election.  Turney  played  this  trick  upon  Douglas  from 
the  meanest  and  most  envious  of  motives.  He  thought 
that  he  should  have  been  run  by  the  Democratic  party 
instead  of  Douglas.  I  do  not  recollect  now  whether 
Stuart  was  re-elected  at  the  next  election  or  not;  but 
one  thing  I  will  say,  that  while  in  Congress  he  made  a 
very  respectable  member.  He  was  a  decided  Whig  in 


34:8  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

his  politics.  Prior  to  his  election  to  Congress  he  had 
been  repeatedly  a  member  of  our  State  legislature,  and 
while  there  had  been  dubbed  with  the  sobriquet  of 
"  Jerry  Sly."  This  was  owing  to  John's  great  powers 
of  sly  management  and  intrigue. 

He  had  the  reputation  of  being  the  ablest  and  most 
efficient  jury  lawyer  in  the  State,  especially  in  trespass 
and  slander  cases,  preventing  the  recovery  of  large 
damages  for  the  plaintiff  when  he  was  for  the  defend- 
ant. 

John  T.  Stuart  stands  about  six  feet  high  in  his 
stockings,  and  when  I  first  saw  him,  which  was  in 
1837,  I  thought  him  the  handsomest  man  in  Illinois. 
He  had  the  mildest  and  most  amiable  expression  of 
countenance  I  nearly  ever  saw.  He  is  eminently  cheer- 
ful, social  and  good-humored,  and  a  man  would  be  a 
fiend  to  pick  a  quarrel  with  him. 

For  many  years  he  and  Ben.  F.  Edwards  were  law 
partners,  and  were  engaged,  as  I  have  before  stated, 
for  the  defense  in  the  celebrated  murder  case  where  I 
made  the  fatal  mistake  of  taking  one  of  their  associ- 
ates— counsellor  Rosette — for  the  criminal. 

John  T.  Stuart  did  not  go  off  with  Lincoln  and 
Trumbull  into  the  Republican  party,  although  an 
original  Whig. 

Although  Stuart  has  never  done  anything,  nor  had 
a  chance  to  do  it,  whereby  to  make  a  great  name  in 
his  country's  history,  yet  he  is  far  from  sinking  to  the 
level  of  mere  mediocrity.  I  have  known  many  noisy 
men,  who  thought  themselves  great  men,  that  might 
well  covet  the  reputation  of  John  T.  Stuart. 

As  I  understand,  he  is  still  living  and  resides  in  his 


JOHN  T.  STUART. 


349 


old  town  of  Springfield,  111.,  and  is  a  bright  and  shin- 
ing ornament  to  the  social  circle  in  which  he  moves, 
and  knowing  nothing  more  particular  in  reference  to 
Stuart  which  would  be  entertaining  to  my  readers,  I 
now  introduce  the  name  of  Benjamin  F.  Edwards. 


350  LIXDEK'S  KEMIXISCKXCES. 


F.  EDAVABDS. 


was  the  son  of  Gov.  I^inian  Edwards,  and 
the  brother  of  Ninian  "W.  Edwards,  of  whom 
I  have  already  given  a  sketch.  He  is  a  very 
fine  lawyer;  was  liberally  educated,  but  I  may  say 
without  giving  any  offense  to  him,  that  he  is  one  of 
the  vainest  men  I  ever  knew,  having  inherited  it  from 
his  father.  But  vanity  was  not  the  only  thing  he 
inherited  from  him,  for  he  also  inherited  a  large  share 
of  his  father's  talent  and  legal  mind.  Ben  Edwards 
I  think  has  been  on  the  circuit  bench  of  Sangamon 
county,  but  as  I  have  not  kept  a  close  run  of  him  for 
the  last  six  or  eight  years,  I  cannot  speak  with  any 
great  degree  of  certainty. 

Ben  has  not  cut  any  very  conspicuous  figure  in  poli- 
tics, but  he  has  succeeded  in  making  himself  a  very 
profound  and  respectable  lawyer. 

Knowing  nothing  more  of  him  necessary  to  be 
recorded,  I  now  take  leave  of  him  for  the  purpose 
of  introducing  another  name  belonging  to  Illinois,  for 
my  intention  in  writing  this  work  has  been  to  preserve 
names  of  worthy  contemporaries,  and  transmitting 
them  to  posterity,  who  might  otherwise  sink  into 
oblivion.  My  object  has  been  and  is  to  snatch  from 


BENJAMIN  F.  EDWARDS.  351 

obscurity  the  men  of  worth,  genius  and  talent,  whom 
I  have  known,  and  embalm  them,  if  possible,  in  these 
humble  Reminiscences. 

Worthy  reader,  my  labors  are  drawing  to  a  close, 
and  so  is  my  life.  This  work  is  not  one  of  ambition, 
but  it  is  a  labor  of  love  and  friendship.  It  contains 
the  names  of  many  valued  friends,  and  the  incidents 
and  anecdotes  connected  with  their  lives,  covering  a 
period  of  forty  or  fifty  years.  The  only  thing  I  have 
to  regret  is,  that  I  cannot  do  full  justice  to  the  many 
names  here  introduced;  from  the  fact  that  I  have  had 
to  draw  upon  frail  human  memory  for  my  materials — 
and  that  the  decaying  memory  of  an  old  man,  stand- 
ing on  the  verge  of  three-score  and  ten  years.  But 
don't  suppose,  dear  reader,  that  because  memory  has 
grown  a  little  dim,  that  my  heart  is  less  warm  than  it 
was  in  the  heyday  of  life;  and  as  I  call  up  each  name 
and  face  from  the  lumber  house  of  memory,  I  seem  to 
be  living  over  again  the  days  of  my  youth  and  early 
manhood.  The  task  is  therefore  very  far  from  being 
disagreeable  to  me,  and  the  only  anxiety  I  feel  is  that 
I  may  leave  out  the  name  of  some  worthy  old  friend 
who  is  entitled  to  a  place  in  these  pages.  Don't  sup- 
pose, dear  reader,  that  these  memoirs  are  solely  dedi- 
cated and  devoted  to  my  personal  friends,  for  I  have 
not  forgotten  men  of  worth  whom  1  cannot  class  in 
that  category.  If  I  know  my  own  heart,  I  have  writ- 
ten nothing  thus  far  with  the  motive  of  fixing  a  stain 
upon  the  fame  of  any  mortal  man,  for  my  heart  beats 
kindly  and  warmly  for  the  whole  human  family;  and, 
as  Washington  Irving  has  said  much  more  elegantlv 
than  I  can  say  it:  "My  heart  now  throbs  as  warmly 


352 


LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


and  kindly  for  tliee,  worthy  reader,"  and  my  only  fear 
is  that  this  work  will  fall  short  of  supplying  that  in- 
tellectual food  and  entertainment  for  my  readers  which 
has  been  the  paramount  motive  and  desire  I  have  had 
in  getting  up  these  memoirs. 


OYRUS  EDWARDS.  353 


CYEUS  EDWARDS. 


jWILL  now  present  yon  with  the  name  of  one 
of  the  worthiest  men  of  Illinois — one  of  the 
oldest  citizens  of  this  State,  and  in  age  an  oc- 
togenarian— it  is  the  name  of  Cyrus  Edwards,  the 
brother  of  Governor  Ninian  Edwards,  and  the  uncle 
of  Benj.  F.  Edwards  and  Ninian  "W.  Edwards. 

My  acquaintance  with  him  dates  back  as  far  as 
1837,  and  commenced  about  the  time,  or  a  little  before, 
the  "Alton  riots."  The  last  time  I  saw  him  was  a  few 
days  before  the  last  Presidential  election,  at  his  own 
house  in  Upper  Alton. 

Cyrus  Edwards  is  a  native  of  Maryland.  He  was 
liberally  educated,  and  studied  the  law  as  a  pro- 
fession, but  I  am  not  aware  that  he  ever  practiced 
it.  In  stature  he  stands  about  six  feet  four  inches 
in  his  stockings,  and  his  personnel  is  one  of  the 
finest  I  ever  looked  upon;  and  at  the  time  I  last 
saw  him  he  stood  as  straight  and  erect  as  an  arrow, 
and  his  venerable  face  and  form  reminded  me  for- 
cibly of  the  portraits  I  have  seen  of  George  Wash- 
ington. As  a  man  of  literature  and  belles-lettres 
scholar  I  know  of  no  man  in  the  State  who  is  his  equal. 
He  was  at  one  time  a  Senator  in  our  State  Legislature, 
and  I  am  not  sure  now,  that  I  come  to  reflect  upon  it,. 
23 


354:  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

but  what  he  was  a  member  of  that  body  at  the  session 
of  1836  and  '37,  when  I  was  a  member  of  the  lower 
House. 

At  the  time  I  last  saw  him,  to  which  I  have  alluded, 
the  old  man  was  so  glad  to  see  me  that  he  actually 
shed  tears  of  joy.  On  the  evening  of  that  day  I  made 
a  speech  on  the  political  topics  of  the  day  in  Upper 
Alton,  and  Cyrus  Edwards  was  present,  and  one  of 
my  most  delighted  auditors. 

I  heard  him  deliver  a  course  of  lectures  in  Lower 
Alton  in  1837,  which  was  the  finest  specimen  of  litera- 
ture and  taste  I  ever  heard.  He  is  a  most  elegant  gen- 
tleman— a  man  of  refined  and  accomplished  manners. 

It  has  always  been  a  matter  of  astonishment  to  me 
that  Cyrus  Edwards  did  not  reach  a  higher  position 
than  that  of  State  Senator.  Many  men  went  to  Con- 
gress who  were  greatly  his  inferiors;  but  he  sits  down 
in  the  calm  twilight  of  old  age  with  the  strong  hope 
that  though  his  vision  must  close  upon  the  things  of 
earth,  it  will  o*pen  upon  a  glorious  immortality.  He 
is  one  of  the  purest  men  that  ever  made  a  foot-print 
upon  the  soil  of  Illinois.  I  have  loved  him  with  the 
devotedness  of  a  son  to  a  father,  and  I  do  believe  he 
returned  my  affection. 

Cyrus  Edwards  was  reared  in  the  Jeffersonian  school 
of  politics.  In  his  social  relations  he  might  be  styled 
a  refined  and  cultivated  aristocrat,  but  he  never  made 
any  man  feel  uncomfortable  by  any  assumed  superi- 
ority. The  world  may  say  what  it  pleases  about  the 
equality  of  men  and  the  equality  of  rights,  but  I 
undertake  to  say  here  that  men  of  bright  and  shining 
parts  only  become  more  resplendent  in  their  glory  by 


CYEUS  EDWARDS.  355 

being  contrasted  with  inferior  lights,  and  it  has  been 
ordered  by  the  great  Governor  of  the  Universe  that 
one  star  should  shine  brighter  than  another  in  glory; 
and  in  the  constellation  of  genius  Cyrus  Edwards  is  a 
star  of  the  first  magnitude,  but  of  mild  and  resplen- 
dent glory. 

If  he  had  been  a  man  of  more  ambition  he  might 
have  reached  an  eminence  far  above  anything  he  ever 
attained  to;  but  he  aspired  more  to  a  social  than  to  a 
political  position  in  life.  I  think  he  is  now  not  far 
from  being  eighty-five  or  ninety  years  of  age.  He  is 
probably,  next  to  his  distinguished  brother,  the  Gover- 
nor, one  of  the  most  talented  and  gifted  members  of 
the  great  Edwards  family,  and  that  I  have  not  written 
more  of  him  than  I  have  results  from  the  fact  that  he 
never  aspired,  like  some  of  his  relatives,  to  a  high  posi- 
tion. He  was  made  more  for  social  than  political  life, 
therefore  I  have  to  drop  him  here,  with  regret. 


356  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


ISAAC  P.  WALKER 


ISAAC  P.  WALKER  is  the  next  name  I  shall 
introduce  to  m y  readers.  When  I  first  becain  e 
acquainted  with  him  he  was  a  student  under 
my  dear  old  friend,  Samuel  McRoberts,  and  he  was  one 
of  the  brightest  and  most  promising  boys  I  nearly  ever 
saw.  One  of  Ike's  peculiarities  was  the  length  of  his 
whiskers,  and  I  remember  to  have  advertised  his  coin- 
ing to  one  of  the  Wabash  towns  in  language  something 
as  follows:  "Fellow  citizens,  a  very  talented  young 
man  will  be  here  in  a  day  or  two  to  answer  the  speech 
I  am  now  making  to  you.  You  will  be  notified  of  his 
coming  by  the  length  of  his  whiskers,  which  will  arrive 
a  day  or  two  in  advance  of  him." 

AVhen  "  Ike"  learned  what  I  had  said  it  threw  him 
into  such  a  tempest  of  passion  that  he  lost  all  control 
of  himself,  and  fell  down  upon  me  in  a  torrent  of  per- 
sonal abuse  that  did  his  party  more  injury  than  good. 
They  were  very  intemperate  and  ill-considered.  At 
that  time  Ike  had  not  won  any  particular  distinction. 
He  was  an  ultra  Democrat,  and  at  that  time  a  great 
hater  of  Abolitionists,  but  he  subsequently  removed 
to  Milwaukee,  Wis.,  and  became  an  abolitionist  of  the 
ultra  type,  and  succeeded  in  being  elected  to  the  Sen- 
ate  of  the  United  States.  This  may  seem  somewhat 


ISAAC  P.  WALKEK.  357 

strange  to  my  readers,  but  it  is  nevertheless  true.  He 
was  in  the  Senate  in  1850,  at  the  time  of  the  passage 
of  the  great  compromise  resolutions  on  the  subject  of 
slavery,  and  being  entitled  to  the  floor,  gave  place  to 
Daniel  Webster,  whom  everybody  had  come  to  hear. 
This  was  a  remarkable  exercise  of  modesty  on  Ike's 
part,  to  yield  the  floor  to  so  small  a  man  as  Daniel 
Webster,  of  Massachusetts! 

Ike  was  something  of  a  pugilist,  and  a  perfect  Her- 
cules in  strength,  and  distinguished  himself  by  admin- 
istering a  terrible  flogging  to  an  Irish  lawyer,  who  is 
now  one  of  the  Supreme  Judges  of  Wisconsin,  whose 
name  I  will  not  mention,  for  he  is  a  very  excellent  man 
and  a  good  lawyer. 

My  dear  friend  Isaac  P.  Walker  has  gone  to  his  last 
account.  Ike  was  well  connected  and  deservedly  dis- 
tinguished for  his  talent  as  a  lawyer.  I  met  him  re- 
peatedly at  the  Danville  court,  and  was  often  engaged 
on  opposite  sides  against  him,  and  I  always  considered 
him  as  a  foeman  worthy  of  my  steel. 


-358  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


EOBEET  WILSON. 


JWILL  now  take  the  liberty  of  introducing  to 
the  attention  of  my  readers  the  name  of  one 
of  the  members  of  that  celebrated  session  of 
the  Legislature  of  18 36 -and  '37.  I  mean  the  name  of 
Robert  Wilson.  I  do  not  expect  to  devote  to  him  but 
a  very  small  space  in  these  memoirs,  but  he  is  worthy 
of  a  much  larger  space  than  I  can  give  him.  I  met 
him  at  the  unveiling  of  Lincoln's  statue,  and  had  a 
long  talk  with  him  over  the  incidents  of  that  session, 
and  he  made  me  acquainted  with  the  fact  that  he  had 
kept  the  run  of  the  members  of  that  Legislature,  and 
that  out  of  105  members  only  fifteen  at  that  period 
were  living.  It  is  melancholy  to  reflect  what  havoc 
time  makes  with  frail  humanity.  All  suchmen  deserve 
to  have  their  names  and  memories  preserved.  He 
told  me  that  after  the  breaking  out  of  the  war,  he  went 
to  Washington,  and  on  meeting  with  Mr.  Lincoln  at 
the  White  House,  he  said  to  him,  "  Bob,  you  expect 
some  appointment  from  me,  don't  you?"  "Well," 
said  he,  "I  do;"  and  after  stating  the  office  he  courted, 
Lincoln  said  to  him:  "Bob,  I  have  got  something 
much  better  for  you;  I  will  make  you  one  of  the  pay- 
masters of  the  army."  And  he  did,  and  Bob  made 
an  honest  one;  and  no  one  has  ever  dared  to  question 
his  integrity,  fidelity  or  patriotism. 

Bob  is  one  of  th»  Long  Nine  who  represented  San- 
gamon  in  the  House  of  Representatives  in  1836-'37. 


ROBERT  SMITH.  359 


EOBEET  SMITH. 


|HE  next  name  I  propose  to  introduce  is  that 
of  Robert  Smith,  who  was  a  member  of  that 
celebrated  legislature  of  1836  and  '37,  to 
which  I  have  so  often  referred.  He  was  afterwards  a 
member  of  Congress  from  the  district  including  Alton, 
and  no  abler  Representative  did  that  district  ever  have 
than  my  friend  Bob  Smith.  He  was  not  a  lawyer,  but 
a  man  of  talent  and  genius.  He  understood  his  part 
well — no  man  understood  it  better. 

My  acquaintance  with  Bob  continued  for  many  years 
after  we  had  served  together  in  the  legislature.  I 
remember  that  he  gave  me  the  most  active  and  effi- 
cient support  for  the  office  of  Attorney-General.  I 
have  nothing  remarkable  to  record  of  friend  Smith. 
He  was  not  one  of  those  blazing  and  erratic  geniuses 
who  take  the  world  by  storm,  but  he  kept  upon  the 
even  tenor  of  his  way;  was  always  at  his  post,  and 
never  stepped  aside  to  aim  a  blow  at  an  antagonist. 
He  was  emphatically  a  working  member,  as  well  while 
he  was  in  the  legislature  as  when  he  was  a  member  of 
Congress.  Bob  made  but  few  speeches,  but  made 
some  very  elaborate  and  able  reports  from  the  conv 
mittees  in  which  he  served. 


LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


He  was  one  of  the  most  amiable  and  sweet-tempered 
men  I  ever  knew.  I  don't  tliink  I  ever  saw  him  in  a 
passion  in  my  life. 

He  was  perfectly  •familiar  with  all  parliamentary 
law,  and  at  home  when  a  question  of  order  was  sprung 
upon  the  House.  Though  Bob  was  never  Speaker,  he 
was  often  called  to  the  chair,  owing  to  his  readiness 
and  promptness  in  deciding  questions  of  order. 

Bob  died  a  good  many  years  ago,  but  he  has  left 
behind  a  clean  record  and  the  name  of  an  honest  man 
as  an  inheritance  for  his  children. 


WILLIAM  A.  MINSUALL. 


"WILLIAM  A.  MINSHALL. 


|ILLIAM  A.  MINSHALL,  of  Schuyler  county, 
was  anotlier  member  of  that  celebrated  legis- 
lature which  met  at  Yandalia  in  1836  and  '37. 
He  was  a  lawyer,  and  a  very  able  one,  and  at  one  time 
was  judge  of  the  circuit  court  of  the  military  district. 
I  knew  him  well,  and  have  met  him  often  at  Spring- 
field and  Rushville.  During  the  last  years  of  our 
acquaintance  he  and  Robert  Blackwell,  whom  I  have 
already  sketched,  were  law  partners  in  Rushville. 
Miushall  I  believe  was  a  native  of  Ohio,  and  studied 
law  with  Judge  McLain  at  the  same  time  my  old  friend 
Justin  Ilarlan  was  a  student  in  the  same  office;  and  I 
have  often  heard  Judge  Ilarlan  speak  of  Minshall  in 
the  most  flattering  terms. 

Minshall,  in  his  early  days,  and  especially  about  the 
time  he  was  married,  was  given  to  dissipation.  He 
courted  a  most  beautiful  woman,  and  on  proposing 
marriage  to  her,  she  promptly  rejected  him,  on  the 
strength  of  which  Minshall  got  most  gloriously  drunk, 
and  in  his  crazy  mood  put  on  seven  clean  shirts,  and 
in  that  condition  he  went  over  to  see  her  again,  letting 
her  know  that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  live  with- 
out her.  The  young  lady,  who  was  far  from  being 


362  LINDEB'S  REMINISCENCES. 

indifferent  to  the  suit  of  Minshall,  finally  concluded 
that  she  would  try  and  make  a  man  of  him,  so  she 
said  to  him:  "Mr.  Mmsliall,  I  will  never  marry  a 
drunkard,  and  if  I  had  a  husband  and  he  was  to  be- 
come one,  I  would  leave  him  on  the  instant,  if  I  loved 
him  as  I  love  my  life;  but  I  have  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  I  will  marry  you  upon  one  condition :  If 
you  will  reform  your  habits,  and  give  me  satisfac- 
tory proofs  of  the  same,  and  make  a  solemn  vow  that 
you  will  never  drink  again.  So  now  you  go  home  and 
divest  yourself  of  all  those  shirts  but  one,  and  come 
back  in  a  month  from  now,  and  we  will  consummate 
this  agreement." 

Minshall  gladly  took  her  at  her  word,  and  after  a 
month's  probation  he  returned,  took  the  vow,  and  they 
were  married,  and  he  religiously  lived  up  to  his  pledge 
to  the  day  of  his  death;  and  I  know  of  no  happier 
couple  than  they  were  in  the  whole  circle  of  my  ac- 
quaintance. He  had  the  reputation  of  being  one  of 
the  kindest  of  husbands  and  tenderest  of  fathers  in 
the  town  where  he  lived.  I  have  often  been  at  his 
house,  partaken  of  his  hospitality,  and  my  eyes  never 
looked  upon  a  more  beautiful  picture  of  domestic  hap- 
piness than  he  and  his  family  presented. 

During  his  life  1  often  met  him  at  the  Supreme 
Court  at  Springfield.  His  genial  and  amiable  coun- 
tenance I  often  recall  to  memory,  and  the  many  social 
chats  we  had  together,  and  lean  freely  say  that  I  don't 
know  of  any  lawyer  who  was  a  much  brighter  or  more 
shining  ornament  of  the  bar  than  "William  A.  Min- 
shall, of  Schuyler  county. 


JOHN  D.  CATON.  363 


JOHN   D.    CATON 


IUDGE  JOHN  D.  CATON  is  a  name  that 
could  not  well  be  omitted  from  these  pages; 
and  yet  he  needs  no  place  here  to  make  his 
name  and  fame  more  widely  known  than  it  now  is.  For 
twenty  or  twenty-five  years  he  was  one  of  the  judges 
of  our  Supreme  Court,  and  his  written  opinions, 
which  are  to  be  found  in  our  judicial  reports,  are  mas- 
terpieces of  legal  acumen  and  an  imperishable  monu- 
ment of  his  legal  learning  and  strong  common  sense. 
His  opin-ions  in  equity  cases  would  do  honor  to  a 
Hardwicke  or  an  Eldon.  During  his  long  career  as 
lawyer  and  judge  in  this  State,  no  one  ever  dared  to 
impugn  his  integrity  or  call  in  question  his  impar- 
tiality. He  was  first  appointed  to  the  supreme  judge- 
ship  by  Gov.  Thomas  Ford,  if  I  remember  rightly,  to 
fill  some  vacancy  which  had  occurred;  was  subse- 
quently elected  to  the  same  office  by  the  legislature, 
and  after  the  office  was  made  elective  by  the  people, 
he  was  again  and  again  elected  thereto. 

There  is  rather  an  amusing  story  told  of  Judge 
Caton  when  the  supreme  judges  were  only  receiving  a 
salary  of  twelve  or  fifteen  hundred  dollars  a  year.  He 
went  into  a  grocery  store,  it  seems,  and  purchased  a 
very  nice  sugar-cujed  ham,  and  set  it  down  by 


364  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

the  side  of  the  counter  and  commenced  a  little  confab 
with  the  grocer.  While  they  were  talking,  a  great 
shaggy  ill-favored  cur-dog  came  in  and  picked  up  the 
judge's  ham  and  deliberately  made  off'  with  it;  but  the 
judge  was  in  time,  and  overtaking  his  dogship  rescued 
his  ham,  giving  his  caninity  several  hearty  kicks,  and 
addressing  him  in  language  something  like  the  fol- 
lowing: 

"  You  miserable "  with  an  adjective  as  strong  as 

the  dignity  of  a  supreme  judge  would  allow,  which  I 
will  not  repeat;  "you  are  the  meanest  dog  I  ever  saw, 
to  come  in  here  and  steal  the  ham  which  has  cost  me 
my  last  dollar;  don't  you  know  that  I  am  only  receiv- 
ing the  pitiful  salary  of  twelve  hundred  and  fifty  dol- 
lars a  year?  You  are  mean  enough  to  steal  the  last 
piece  of  meat  from  the  lowest  shelf  in  a  nigger's 
kitchen." 

Judge  Caton  has  always  been  a  Democrat. .  I  think 
he  is  a  native  of  New  York.  He  came  to  this  State 
and .  located  in  Chicago  about  the  year  1832  or  '33, 
about  the  same  time  that  Giles  Spring  settled  in  that 
place.  I  heard  him  give  a  most  amusing  narration  at 
the  lawyers'  festival,  held  at  the  Pacific  Hotel  a  year 
or  more  ago,  of  his  and  Spring's  trials  as  young  law- 
yers. He  said  that  clients  were  few,  fees  small  and 
money  scarce.  I  think  he  said,  I  am  not  sure,  that  he 
and  Spring,  or  one  of  them,  kept  his  office  on  the  head 
of  a  barrel  down  on  the  corner  of  Lake  and  Wells 
streets;  but  clients  not  making  their  appearance,  and 
they  being  bound  to  have  money  to  pay  their  hotel 
bills,  they  engaged  to  carry  the  chain  for  a  surveyor 
on  the  North  Side,  where  the  weeds  were  tremendously 


JOHN  D.  CATON.  365 

high  and  thick.  He  told  the  hotel-keeper  where  he 
could  be  found  if  any  one  came  wanting  a  lawyer; 
"  And,"  said  he,  "  I  managed  to  put  Giles  at  the  front 
end  of  the  chain,  knowing  that  if  a  client  should  come 
he  would  follow  our  trail  through  the  weeds  and  I 
would  be  the  first  lawyer  he  would  overtake.  "We 
hadn't  been  more  than  half  an  hour  engaged  in  our 
work,  Giles  calling  out  "  stick,"  and  I  answering 
"  stuck,"  when  a  very  genteel  looking  man  came  along 
on  our  trail,  inquiring  for  a  lawyer.  I  told  him  I  was 
*  the  man  he  wanted  to  see.  I  don't  remember  now 
what  kind  of  a  case  it  was,  but  suffice  it  to  say,  that 
the  fee  for  those  times  was  a  very  handsome  one,  and 
paid  down  all  in  silver." 

Judge  Caton's  speech  on  that  occasion  was  inter- 
larded with  many  amusing  and  laughable  anecdotes. 

I  presume  it  is  known  to  most  of  my  readers  that 
Judge  Caton  has  amassed  a  considerable  fortune  which 
did  not  accrue  from  his  salary  on  the  bench,  but  resulted 
from  his  prudent  and  wise  investment  of  money  in  the 
purchase  of  telegraphic  stock.  He  is  perhaps  worth 
to-day  over  a  million  of  dollars.  He  is  now  master 
of  his  own  time,  and  not  bound  in  official  chains  to 
any  government  or  party.  He  has  recently  made  a 
tour  through  Norway,  and  has  published  a  very  hand- 
some work,  giving  his  observations  on  that  people  and 
country. 

Judge  Caton  has  never  arrived  at  any  very  high 
position  in  the  political  world,  but  I  will  venture  to 
say  that  were  he  called  to  the  highest  office  in  his 
State  or  nation  he  would  fill  it  with  honor  to  himself 
and  advantage  to  his  country.  It  is  a  pity  we  have 
not  more  such  men. 


366  LINDEE'S  REMINISCENCES. 


J.  L.   D.  MORRISON. 


jSIIALL  next  present  my  readers  with  the  name 
of  Col.  J.  L.  D.  Morrison,  better  known  as  Col. ' 
"  Don  "  Morrison.  I  became  acquainted  with 
him  about  the  year  1841  at  Kaskaskia,  where  he  was 
born,  educated  and  raised  until  he  went  on  board  a 
man-of-war  as  a  midshipman. 

When  I  was  introduced  to  him  at  Kaskaskia  he  was 
then  a  young  lawyer,  and  had  been  but  a  short  time 
at  the  bar.  He  was  associated  with  me  in  the  cele- 
brated Yandeevers  trial,  of  which  I  have  spoken  in  the 
sketch  I  have  given  of  the  life  of  Joe  Gillespie.  He 
then  lived  at  Belleville,  St.  Clair  county.  I  am  mis- 
taken in  saying  that  my  first  introduction  to  him  was 
at  Kaskaskia,  for  I  was  introduced  to  him  at  Nashville, 
Washington  county,  Ills.,  and  from  there  we  all  went 
on  horseback  to  Kaskaskia.  "  Don  "  is  a  cousin  of 
Mrs.  Judge  Breese.  The  Morrisons  are  one  of  the 
oldest  and  most  respectable  families  in  Illinois,  and 
lived  in  Kaskaskia  during  its  territorial  existence. 

My  readers  are,  I  presume,  aware  that  Kaskaskia  is 
one  of  the  oldest  towns  on  this  continent,  being  older 
than  Philadelphia.  It  is  situated  at  the  lower  edge  of 
the  American  Bottom,  the  name  given  to  a  very  rich 


J.  L.  D.  MOKKISON.  367 

and  fertile  tract  of  country  intervening  between  the 
Mississippi  river  and  the  bluffs  east  of  it  on  the  Illi- 
nois side,  its  upper  limits  being  a  little  below  Lower 
Alton — its  average  width  being  about  six  or  seven 
miles.  The  soil  is  all  alluvial,  having  been  formed  by 
deposits  from  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri  rivers.  It 
is  perhaps  one  of  the  most  fertile  and  productive  por- 
tions of  our  globe.  1  have  never  seen  such  corn  grow 
in  any  other  portion  of  the  world  I  have  ever  been  in. 
One  hundred  bushels  to  the  acre  is  no  uncommon  occur- 
rence, and  it  is  equally  prolific  in  other  products.  The 
largest  and  most  delicious  melons  I  ever  ate  were  the 
growth  of  the  American  Bottom,  and  it  is  somewhat 
remarkable  that  it  has  never  been  settled  by  a  very 
thrifty  or  industrious  people,  being  mostly  occupied 
by  old  Canadian  French,  as  the  names  of  their  towns 
scattered  up  and  down  the  bottom  will  sufficiently 
indicate.  The  current  of  the  Mississippi  at  some 
remote  period  once  ran  close  to  these  rocky  bluffs,  and 
a  man  can  see  some  sixty  feet  above  the  level  of  the 
river  or  bottom,  where  its  waters  have  worn  away  the 
solid  rock.  But  I  will  not  follow  the  current  of  the 
Mississippi  any  further,  but  will  go  back  and  take  up 
my  old  friend  Don  Morrison. 

Don  was  a  Lieutenant-Colonel  in  the  Mexican  war, 
and  fought  writh  General  Taylor  in  all  his  battles,  from 
Palo  Alto  to  Buena  Vista.  Don,  on  the  day  of  the 
latter  bloody  battle,  was  laid  upon,  the  sick  list  at  Sal- 
tillo,  a  few  miles  from  there,  but  when  he  heard  the 
cannon  roaring,  contrary  to  the  orders  of  his  surgeon 
and  the  commands  of  his  superior  officer,  he  mounted 
his  horse  and  rode  to  the  scene  of  action,  where  he 


368  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

joined  with  Col.  Bissell's  regiment,  and  fought  with 
them  throughout  the  balance  of  the  engagement.  He 
gave  me  a  description  "of  that  battle  more  graphic  and 
interesting  than  any  that  I  have  ever  had,  either  from 
books  or  human  lips,  especially  that  part  of  his  narra- 
tion relating  to  the  manner  in  which  our  flying  artil- 
lery played  upon  the  Mexican  army.  He  said  that  at 
a  word  or  signal,  the  horses  being  detached  from  the 
cannon,  would  lay  down  flat  upon  the  ground,  when 
our  artillery  would  open  with  grape  and  canister  upon 
the  enemy,  producing  such  a  scene  of  carnage,  slaugh- 
ter and  death  as  he  had  no  language  to  describe; 
when  at  another  signal  the  horses  would  take  their 
places,  and  ere  the  smoke  had  passed  away  the  same 
artillery  would  be  playing  upon  the  Mexican  ranks 
from  another  part  of  the  field  of  battle.  Said  he: 
"  Our  men  fought  as  perhaps  no  other  set  of  men  ever 
did  fight,  bnt  it  was  our  flying  artillery  that  won  for 
us  the  final  victory." 

"  At  one  portion  of  the  day  Captain  Bragg,  who  had 
charge  of  the  artillery,  was  so  hard  pressed  that  he 
sent  to  General  Ta}4or  for  reinforcements,  when  Gen- 
eral Taylor  and  Major  Bliss  mounted  their  horses 
and  promptly  rode  to  where  Captain  Bragg  was,  and 
said:  'Captain  Bragg,  you  sent  to  me  for  reinforce- 
ments, and  I  have  brought  you  all  I  have,  Major  Bliss 
and  myself.'  '  What  shall  I  do  General? '  said  Bragg. 
Old  Rough-and-Ready  answered  in  a  very  quiet  way: 
1  Give  them  a  little  more  grape,  Captain  Bragg;'  and 
Captain  Bragg,  taking  him  at  his  word,  increased  the 
amount  of  grape,  which  soon  made  the  Mexicans  glad 
to  retire." 


J.  L.  D.  MORRISON.  369 

This  I  had  from  Col.  Morrison's  own  lips.  He  told 
me  that  he  was  so  sick  that  he  could  scarcely  sit  his 
horse  during  the  engagement,  but  that  he  would 
sooner  have  died  a  thousand  deaths  than  not  have 
taken  part  in  that  memorable  battle.  And  I  take 
occasion  here  to  say  that  in  my  humble  opinion,  no 
such  victory,  ancient  or  modern,  was  ever  won. 

We  had  only  four  thousand  troops  all  told,  and  only 
four  hundred  of  them  regular  'soldiers,  the  balance 
being  nothing  but  raw  militia,  while  the  Mexicans 
numbered  over  twenty  thousand  regulars,  commanded 
by  their  renowned  and  favorite  General,  Santa  Anna. 
He  expected  to  literally  chew  and  eat  up  old  Zac.  and 
his  handful  of  men.  Such  a  thing  as  defeat  never 
crossed  his  mind.  He  had  crossed  the  plains  intend- 
ing to  steal  upon  old  Zac.  and  catch  him  asleep;  but 
old  "  Rough-and-Ready  "  was  wide  awake  and  prepared 
to  receive  him  as  far  as  it  was  possible  for  him  to  do 
so  under  the  circumstances.  I  may  have  related  it 
before  in  some  portion  of  these  memoirs,  but  I  will 
relate  it  again  as  I  got  it  from  Col.  Don.  Morrison. 
In  the  darkest  and  gloomiest  hour  of  the  battle,  some 
officer  rode  up  to  General  Taylor  and  said:  "  General, 
our  men  are  whipped  —  badly  whipped."  Taylor  re- 
plied: "  I  know  it,  and  have  known  it  for  the  last  hour 
or  so,  but  our  d — d  fool  boys  don't  know  it,  and  they 
will  fight  on  till  they  ultimately  whip  these  Mexican 
devils,  for  they  have  not  got  the  stamina  of  our  West- 
ern and  Southern  boys;"  and  the  General's  prediction 
was  not  long  in  its  fulfillment.  They  finally  retired, 
leaving  the  victory  with  us;  but  it  was  a  victory  most 
sorely  and  dearly  purchased,  for  it  .resulted  in  the  loss 
24 


370  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

of  such  glorious  men  as  Colonels  John  J.  Harclin, 
Key  and  young  Henry  Clay  of  Kentucky,  the  son  of 
the  distinguished  orator  and  statesman  of  that  State. 
Col.  Don.  Morrison,  when  I  last  saw  him,  was  a 
man  of  fine  personal  appearance.  He  is  a  man  of  ele- 
gant manners  and  of  a  gallant  and  chivalrous  nature. 
He  married  a  daughter  of  Thomas  Carlin,  who  was 
once  Governor  of  this  State.  She  was  a  highly  educa- 
ted, beautiful  and  refined  lady.  I  don't  know  anything 
more  of  Don.  necessary  to  be  recorded;  I  therefore 
take  my  leave  of  him,  having  no  doubt  that  posterity 
will  take  good  care  of  his  name  and  fame. 


JOHN  HOG  AN.  371 


JOHK  HOGAN". 


HE  Rev.  John  Hogan  shall  have  the  next  place 
in  these  recollections.     He  was  a  member-of 
the  lower  House  of  the  Illinois  Legislature 
which  convened  in  1836  and  '37  at  Yandalia. 

He  is  a  native  of  Ireland.  He  was  originally  a 
Methodist  preacher  and  circuit  rider,  and,  like  all  Irish- 
men, was  gifted  in  the  way  of  gab.  He  took  a  leading 
part  in  most  of  the  subjects  that  came  before  our  House. 
I  remember  that  he  was  amongst  the  most  prominent 
of  the  members  of  that  body  who  embarked  in  our 
wild  and  mad  schemes  of  internal  improvement.  I 
have  already  related  in  another  place  what  he  said  in 
reference  to  the  value  of  our  bonds  when  they  should 
be  thrown  upon  the  market,  and  of  course  will  not 
repeat  it  here.  He  was  the  son-in-law  of  a  little,  old 
retired  Methodist  preacher  by  the  name  of  "West,  and 
brother-in-law  to  the  West  who  during  the  Alton  riots 
ascended  upon  a  long  ladder  to  the  roof  of  Godfrey  & 
Gilman's  warehouse  and  extinguished  the  fire  which 
had  been  thrown  there  by  the  outsiders  in  the  form  of 
a  blazing  ball  saturated  with  turpentine;  and,  strange 
to  tell,  Lovejoy  and  others  of  those  inside  came  out 
and  fired  upon  him  as  he  was  ascending  the  ladder 


372  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

intending  to  do  them  a  favor.  West  finally  undertook 
to  negotiate  between  those  outside  and  those  inside  of 
the  warehouse,  and  he  did  so.  After  the  death  of 
Lovejoy,  John  Hogan,  as  well  as  myself,  was  severely 
assailed  and  maligned  for  the  part  he  took  in  attempt- 
ing to  settle  and  compromise  matters  between  Love- 
joy  and  his  enemies.  I  know  that  he  did  all  that  mor- 
tal man  could  do  to  bring  about  peace  between  these 
hostile  elements. 

After  John  and  I  had  served  in  the  legislature 
together,  I  lost  sight  of  him  awhile,  but  he  finally 
removed  to  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  and  was  elected  as  one  of 
the  Representatives  from  that  district  to  the  House  of 
Representatives  in  Congress. 

I  fell  in  with  John  Hogan  at  Springfield,  111.,  in 
1874,  at  the  unveiling  of  Lincoln's  statue,  and  he  and 
I  and  Bob.  Wilson,  all  three  members  of  that  old  and 
celebrated  legislature  of  1836  and  '37,  rode  down 
together  in  the  same  .carriage  to  the  monument,  and 

•  -    o  o  / 

had  places  of  honor  assigned  to  us;  and  the  reader 
may  rest  assured  that  we  called  up  many  reminiscences 
and  recollections,  some  agreeable  and  some  sad.  It 
was  upon  this  occasion  that  I  learned  from  Wilson 
that  he  had  kept  the  run  of  that  legislature,  and  that 
out  of  a  hundred  and  five  members  there  were  only 
fifteen  living,  of  which  Hogan,  Wilson  and  myself 
made  three. 

John  Hogan  is  a  man  of  very  fine  social  qualities, 
and  as  a  popular  speaker,  possessed  the  faculty  of 
interesting  an  audience  and  in  gaining  their  attention 
and  holding,  it  equal  to  almost  any  man  I  ever  knew. 
He  is  quite  a  small  man,  of  a  very  pleasant  counte- 


JOHN  HOGAN.  373 

nance,  and  when  young  was  quite  a  handsome  man,  but 
when  I  last  saw  him,  I  discovered  that  time  and  age 
had  made  sad  havoc  with  his  personal  comeliness, 
as  they  had  done  with  myself.  He  was  a  man  of  fine 
colloquial  and  conversational  powers.  Knowing  noth- 
ing of  my  Old  friend  John  Hogan  which  might  be  of 
interest  to  my  readers,  I  here  respectfully  take  leave 
of  him. 


LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


BUCKMAStEK. 


JWILL  now  introduce  the  name  of  Nathaniel 
Buckmaster,  one  of  my  most  beloved  and 
highly  esteemed  friends.  My  acquaintance 
with  him  commenced  in  1837,  when  I  was  in  attend- 
ance on  the  Madison  County  Circuit  Court,  as  Attor- 
ney-General, he  being  at  that  time  sheriff'  of  that 
county.  No  man  that  I  ever  saw  prepossessed  me 
more  at  first  appearance  than  Nathaniel  Buckmaster. 
He  seemed  to  take  me  to  his  very  heart  and  bosom 
on  our  first  introduction,  and  we  continued  to  be  fast 
and  steadfast  friends  to  the  very  last  day  that  I  ever 
saw  him.  He  was  the  most  genial,  social  and  con- 
vivial man  I  ever  knew.  He  was  not  a  lawyer  by 
profession,  but  he  possessed  considerable  talent.  He 
was  a  native  of  Virginia,  and  possessed  all  the  hos- 
pitable qualities  of  the  people  of  that  Old  Dominion; 
and  I  recur  to  him  now  and  the  recollection  of  our 
friendly  intercourse  with  the  greatest  pleasure.  He 
has  given  me  most  substantial  proof  of  his  friendship. 
He  was  a  member  of  the  State  Legislature,  and  I 
think  it  was  the  Senate,  prior  to  1836  and  1837.  He 
was  acquainted  with  most  of  the  distinguished  men 
who  figured  in  the  State  of  Illinois,  prior  to  my  advent 


NATHANIEL   BUCKMASTEK.  375 

into  the  State,  and  has  narrated  to  me  many  inter- 
esting anecdotes  and  incidents  connected  with  the 
lives  and  careers  of  those  men  that  I  cannot  now  recall, 
which  would  be  of  great  interest  to  my  readers  if  I 
could;  but  they  know  how  frail  is  human  memory, 
and  must  excuse  me  for  not  doing  so. 

Mr.  Buckmaster  for  many  years  was  sheriff  of  Mad- 
ison county,  and  also  warden  of  the  penitentiary  at 
Alton,  and  in  all  his  official  relations  he  sustained  the 
character  of  an  honest  man  and  faithful  public  officer. 

He  was  a  man  about  six  feet  high,  of  a  symmetrical 
form,  and  one  of  the  finest  dancers  I  ever  saw,  and  he 
moved  through  the  giddy  mazes  of  the  dance  with  a 
grace  and  elegance  unsurpassed  by  any  man  I  ever 
saw. 

My  readers  must  pardon  me  for  introducing  Col. 
Buckmaster  into  this  work.  He  was  my  old  and 
especial  friend,  and  as  I  have  been  trying  to  write  for 
their  amusement,  if  not  for  their  instruction,  they  will 
accord  to  me  the  privilege  of  introducing  to  them  one 
of  my  dearest  friends,  whom  I  most  sincerely  love,  of 
whom  I  will  ilbw  take  leave.  He  has  lone;  since  gone 

O  <"» 

to  the  Summer  Land,  where  I  trust  all  such  men  will 
go.  If  we  meet  again  beyond  this  earthly  sphere,  in 
a  better  place  than  this,  I  hope  to  have  a  happy  meet- 
ing with  my  old  friend  Nathaniel  Buckmaster. 


376  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


JAMES    TUBKEY. 


jHE  next  name  I  propose  to  present  to  my 
readers  is  that  of  General  James  Turney,  who 
was  one  of  our  State  Senators  in  the  legisla- 
ture of  1836  and  '37,  to  whom  I  have  already  referred 
in  connection  with  an  affair  of  honor  which  occurred 
between  a  member  of  the  house  and  myself.  Gen. 
Turney  was  a  much  older  man  than  myself,  and  got 
the  name  of  General  as  I  did,  having  been  Attorney- 
General  of  the  State  some  considerable  time  previous 
to  my  election  thereto.  He  was  a  native  of  Tennes- 
see, and  connected  with  the  talented  Turneys  of  that 
State,  some  of  whom  figured  conspicuously  in  the  Con- 
gress of  the  United  States. 

Gen.  Turney  was  a  man  of  commanding  eloquence, 
and  of  a  very  majestic  appearance,  especially  when  he 
addressed  the  Senate.  No  one  could  fail  to  recognize 

O 

in  a  moment,  when  they  heard  him  speak,  that  he  was 
a  man  of  considerable  genius  and  talent.  He  never 
failed  to  command  the  most  profound  attention  of  the 
Senate,  and  at  all  times  was  listened  to  with  the  great- 
est interest.  I  remember  when  going  on  my  circuit 
as  Attorney-General  of  being  told  by  Col.  Buckmas- 
ter  and  others  that  such  was  the  reputation  which  had 


JAMES  TUKNEY.  377 

preceded  Gen.  Turney  that  a  great  many  men  indicted 
came  in  and  confessed  guilty,  rather  than  stand  a  trial 
under  his  administration  as  Attorney-General.  I  have 
spent  many  long  and  agreeable  hours  with  Gen.  Tur- 
ney. "We  elected  him,  in  1837,  as  one  of  the  commis- 
sioners of  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal,  which 
office  he  filled  for  several  years.  I  was  at  his  town — 
Carrollton — at  the  time  of  the  Alton  riots,  Jesse  B. 
Thomas  being  judge  of  that  court.  Gen.  Turney's 
habits  being  then  none  of  the  best,  he  got  me  to  take 
charge  of  his  cases,  which  I  did.  I  deem  it  unneces- 
sary here  to  say  anything  more  of  General  Turney. 


378  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


E.  G.  EYAK 


|HE  next  name  I  propose  to  introduce  is  that 
of  E.  G.  Ryan,  now  one  of  the  judges  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Wisconsin.  My  acquain- 
tance with  him  commenced  at  Yandalia,  at  that  mem- 
orable session  of  the  legislature  of  1836  and  '37.  He 
was  there  in  attendance  upon  the  Supreme  Court  as  a 
lawyer,  his  residence  being  then  at  Chicago;  and  I 
think  I  may  say,  without  giving  offense  to  any  living 
man,  there  was  no  man  then  at  the  bar  who  could  claim 
to  be  his  superior. 

Ryan  is  an  Irishman  by  birth.  He  is  a  man  of  bad 
temper  and  tyrannical  disposition.  He  fell  out  with 
Isaac  P.  Walker  once  at  Springfield,  and  abused 
Walker  in  adjectives  that  but  few  men  could  stand, 
and  AValker  gave  him  a  terrible  flogging,  which  I  pre- 
sume he  has  not  forgotten  even  to  this  day.  Walker 
was  a  perfect  Hercules  in  physical  strength  and  power, 
and  therefore  it  was  no  difficult  task  to  administer  this 
chastisement  to  Ryan. 

Ryan  was  a  most  eminent  and  learned  lawyer,  and 
has  to-day,  perhaps,  no  superior  on  the  Northwestern 
bench.  I  was  introduced  to  him  by  Judge  Theophilus 
W.  Smith,  of  Chicago,  but  was  never  prepossessed  with 


E.  G.  EYAJT.  379 

him  from  the  first  hour  of  our  acquaintance.  He  was 
a  very  sarcastic  and  disagreeable  man.  He  strove  to 
make  everybodj'  feel  their  inferiority  to  him  and  his 
superiority  to  them. 

I  lost  sight  of  him  for  a  good  many  years,  but  I 
learned  in  these  later  years,  that  Ryan  sank  into  great 
indigence,  and  had  actually  to  copy  records  and  law- 
yers' briefs  as  a  means  of  supporting  himself  and  his 
family,  but  a  little  turn  in  fortune's  wheel  has  lifted 
him  to  the  Supreme  Bench  of  the  State  of  Wisconsin, 
where  I  trust  he  will  long  remain,  for  he  is  certainly 
a  great  judicial  light,  and  whatever  may  be  his  faults, 
I  take  him  to  be  a  pure  and  honest  man  and  an  up- 
right judge;  and  if  these  pages  should  meet  his  eye,  I 
wish  him  to  consider,  in  the  language  of  Shakspeare, 
"  that  I  have  nothing  extenuated,  nor  set  down  aught 
in  malice."  As  E.  G.  Ryan  has  for  a  long  time  been 
a  citizen  of  Wisconsin,  I  leave  him  to  the  care  of  the 
historians  of  that  State,  and  those  who  may  write  up 
the  biographies  of  its  distinguished  men,  having 
devoted  to  him  the  space  here  given  in  consideration 
of  his  having  once  been  a  citizen  of  the  State  of 
Illinois. 


380  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


WILLIAM   O.   QEEENUR 


1HE  next  name  that  I  shall  introduce  is  that 
of  one  of  the  oldest  citizens  of  Illinois,  and 
one  of  the  first  men  of  any  distinction  with 
whom  I  became  acquainted  after  my  advent  into  this 
State — it  is  that  of  Col.  William  0.  Greenup.  My 
acquaintance  with  him  commenced  in  1835,  at  iny 
father's  house,  in  the  town  of  Greenup,  and  county  of 
Coles,  on  the  National  Road,  being  then  constructed 
from  Terre  Haute  to  Vandalia,  to  which  I  have  already 
alluded  in  some  other  portion  of  these  memoirs. 

Col.  Greenup  was  a  native  of  Kentucky,  and  a 
nephew  of  old  Gov.  Greenup,  of  that  State.  He  came 
to  Illinois  while  it  was  a  territory,  and  settled  in  Kas- 
kaskia,  and  was  Secretary  of  the  convention  that 
formed  our  first  Constitution.  He  was  a  great  friend 
of  ray  father  and  mother,  and  also  of  mine.  I  remem- 
ber very  distinctly  I  sent  down  to  the  Supreme  Court 
my  license  to  practice  law  by  the  hand  of  Col.  Greenup, 
dated  the  first  of  May,  1827,  and  received  from  them 
a  license,  authorizing  me  to  practice  in  the  State  of 
Illinois. 

At  the  time  when  I  first  became  acquainted  with 
Col.  Greenup,  he  was  the  chief  officer  and  Superintend- 


WILLIAM  0.  GKEENUP.  381 

ent  of  the  National  Road,  and  boarded  and  made  his 
home  at  my  father's  house.  The  town  of  Greenup 
was  laid  out  by  him  and  Captain  Barber,  and  named 
after  my  friend  Greenup. 

The  Colonel  was  a  perfect  walking  enclyclopeedia 
of  the  early  men  of  Illinois.  Most  of  what  I  have 
learned  of  the  men  and  events  of  Illinois  prior  to 
my  acquaintance  with  them,  I  learned  from  Colonel 
Greenup.  He  was  a  man  of  the  most  remarkable 
memory  I  ever  knew.  He  was  not  only  acquainted 
with  most  of  the  eminent  men  of  Illinois,  but  with  a 
great  many  in  Kentucky.  For  instance:  The  Wick- 
liifes,  the  Hardins,  Marshalls,  Grundy  and  Rowan,  and 
many  others  that  I  cannot  now  call  to  mind. 

Colonel  Greenup  died  many  years  ago.  My  acquaint- 
ance with  him  continued  up  to  1838,  and  our  relations 
were  always  of  a  friendly  character.  I  have  given 
him  a  place  here  because  he  was  prominent  in  the 
early  history  of  our  State,  and  took  an  active  part  in 
the  formation  of  our  first  Constitution  ;  and  was 
honored  by  the  secretaryship  of  that  ancient  body.  I 
therefore  make  no  apology  for  introducing  his  name 
into  these  memoirs. 


382  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


DAVID  MCDONALD. 


TIE  next  name  that  I  shall  introduce  to  my 
readers  is  one  that  I  have  too  long  neglected, 
and  should  have  had  the  first  place,  or  nearly 
so,  in  the  memoirs.  It  is  the  name  of  Judge  David 
McDonald,  late  judge  of  the  Federal  District  Court 
of  Indiana.  My  acquaintance  commenced  with  him 
many  years  ago.  I  know  it  was  prior  to  1856.  A 
friend  of  mine  had  been  sued  in  the  Circuit  Court  of 
Vigo  county,  Indiana,  Terre  Haute  being  the  county 
seat.  The  name  of  the  plaintiff  was  Dumas  Vanderen, 
and  that  of  the  defendant,  my  client,  Ebenezer  Noyes, 
both  citizens  of  Coles  county,  Illinois.  Noyes  em- 
ployed me  to  defend  him,  and  authorized  me  to  associ- 
ate with  me  one  of  the  most  distinguished  lawyers  of 
Indiana,  leaving  the  choice  entirely  to  me.  I  had 
determined  on  employing  Joe  Marshall,  of  Madison, 
Indiana,  and  wrote  him  a  letter  to  that  effect,  and  got 
one  of  the  most  melancholy  replies  I  ever  received, 
telling  me  that  it  would  have  afforded  him  the  great- 
est pleasure  to  have  been  associated  with  me  in  that 
case,  but  it  was  impossible,  for  he  felt  himself  to  be  in 
a  dying  condition,  and  was  about  going  South  to  try 
and  recruit  his  health.  At  the  term  of  the  court  to 


DAVID  MCDONALD.  383 

which  the  case  was  set  for  trial,  I  got  acquainted  with 
Judge  Hughes,  the  presiding  judge  of  that  court,  and 
told  him  of  my  dilemma.  He  told  me  he  thought  he 
could  introduce  me  to  a  lawyer  that  would  exactly 
suit  my  purpose,  and  thereupon  introduced  me  to 
David  McDonald,  who  had  for. a  long  time  been  judge 
of  the  circuit  on  the  circuit  including  Bloomington, 
Indiana,  and  who  had  also  been  professor,  and  lecturer 
of  the  law  school  in  that  place.  From  that  time  our 
intimacy  and  acquaintance  commenced,  which  were 
of  the  most  intimate  character.  I  loved  the  man,  and 
I  think  he  loved  me. 

Somewhere  about  1856  or  '7  I  received  a  letter  from 
him  desiring  me  to  meet  him  at  old  Vincennes,  stating 
that  the  Yincennes  University  wished  to  employ  me 
in  the  prosecution  of  a  claim  of  theirs  against  Sam- 
uel Judah,  who  as  their  lawyer  had  collected  about 
forty  or  fifty  thousand  dollars,  which  he  refused  to  pay 
over  to  them.  I  met  him  there  at  the  time  appointed, 
at  a  term  of  the  Vincennes  court  set  for  the  trial  of  the 
case.  We  only  charged  them  the  moderate  sum  of  one 
thousand  dollars  apiece,  they  giving  us  a  very  hand- 
some retainer.  Judah,  not  being  popular,  took  a 
change,  of  venue  to  Sullivan  county,  where  Judge 
McDonald  and  I  attended  for  several  years,  prosecut- 
ing the  claim  of  the  University  against  Judah.  We  got, 
as  well  as  I  remember,  two  or  three  verdicts,  which  were 
reversed  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  Indiana;  but  the  last 
one,  which  was  for  about  nine  thousand  dollars,  they 
permitted  to  stand. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  pleasant  and  agreeable  hours 
which  I  spent  with  Judge  McDonald  at  our  hotel 


384  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

while  attending  to  this  case.  He  was  a  warm  friend 
and  admirer  of  mine,  and  I  most  cordially  reciprocated 
his  friendship  and  admiration. 

Judge  McDonald  was  originally,  when  quite  a  young 
man,  a  preacher  in  the  Christian  Church,  but  he  left 
them  and  became  a  member  of  the  Methodist  Church 
— not  because  he  preferred  their  doctrines,  but  because 
he  believed  his  own  church  had  treated  him  badly,  in 
which  opinion  I  concurred. 

He  was  a  man  of  the  most  amiable  and  social  dis- 
position, a  fair  scholar,  and  one  of  the  best  special 
pleaders  I  ever  saw.  This  connection  of  ours  in  the 
Vincennes-Judah  case  ran  through  several  years. 
After  that  case  was  over,  and  I  removed  with  my 
family  to  the  city  of  Chicago  in  1860,  I  was  employed 
in  a  land  suit  in  the  District  Federal  Court  of  Indi- 
ana, of  which  court  David  McDonald  had  been  ap- 
pointed Judge  by  Mr.  Lincoln.  It  is  unnecessary  to 
speak  of  the  manner  in  which  that  suit  terminated. 

The  last  time  I  remember  to  have  seen  Judge  Mc- 
Donald was  in  Chicago,  sitting  by  the  side  of  Judges 
Davis  and  Drummond,  on  the  bench  of  the  Federal 
Circuit  Court  of  this  State.  He  had  come  to  this  city 
to  be  treated  for  a  spinal  affection  by  a  magnetic  and 
spiritual  doctor.  Whether  true  or  not,  he  professed 
to  have  obtained  relief  from  his  manipulations,  but  it 
was  not  long  afterwards  when  I  heard  of  his  death, 
which  filled  my  heart  with  sorrow  and  grief.  No  man, 
lawyer  or  judge,  in  Indiana,  was  more  renowned  for 
his  legal  learning,  integrity  and  impartiality,  than  his 
Honor,  David  McDonald,  and  iny  heart  makes  many  a 
pilgrimage  to  his  grave,  and  may  the  grass  long  grow 


DAVID  MCDONALD. 


385 


green  thereon.  If  I  thought  that  I  was  not  to  join 
him  in  a  better  state  than  this,  I  should  regret  having 
ever  been  placed  on  this  low  ground  of  sorrow  and  sin. 
He  was  an  older  man  than  myself,  but  I  feel  that  the 
time  is  not  long  when  I  must  follow  him  to  "  that 
bourne  from  whence  no  traveler  returns."  Peace  be 
to  his  ashes!  for  he  has  left  to  posterity  a  name  and 
fame  embalmed  in  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen. 


25 


386  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


GILES  SPRIKG-. 


ILES  SPRING  is  a  lawyer  who  located  in  Chi- 
cago in  1832  or  1833.  He  and  Judge  Caton 
were  contemporaries  in  the  practice  of  law  in 
that  city.  The  first  time  I  ever  saw  Spring  was  at 
Yandalia,  in  1836,  during  that  session  of  the  legisla- 
ture to  which  I  have  so  often  alluded.  He  was  there 
in  attendance  on  the  Supreme  Court.  He  was  a  man 
naturally  of  very  strong  intellect,  possessing  rare  pow- 
ers of  analysis,  but  of  limited  education.  As  a  speci- 
men of  his  deficiency  in  the  latter  respect,  I  will  give 
a  statement  he  made  to  the  court  in  a  case  he  brought 
down  from  Chicago.  "  May  it  please  your  Honors," 
said  he,  "  the  hull  evidence  in  this  case,  as  sot  down 
in  the  record,  makes  a  clear  case  in  favor  of  my  client." 

But,  notwithstanding  his  limited  education,  he 
seemed  to  be  a  sort  of  natural  lawyer,  possessing  an 
intuitive  insight  into  its  principles  and  maxims.  I 
have  had  it  from  the  lips  of  very  eminent  counsel  who 
are  still  living,  that  Giles  Spring  had  no  superior  at 
the  bar  in  his  powers  of  analysis.  He  seemed  to  pos- 
sess the  faculty  of  looking  through  a  case  at  almost  a 
single  glance. 

I  did  not  meet  him  again  until  about  the  year  1848, 


GILES  SPRING.  387 

at  Springfield,  111.,  the  legislature  being  then  in  session, 
and  I  being  a  member  thereof  from  the  county  of 
Coles.  Giles  was  there  attending  upon  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  with  several  axes  to  grind  by  the  legisla- 
ture. During  this  session,  Giles  and  I  became  pecu- 
liarly intimate,  and  I  have  the  most  lively  and  tender 
recollection  of  our  intercourse  at  that  time.  I  may 
have  seen  him  again  in  1854,  when  I  paid  a  visit  to 
Chicago,  but  of  this  I  am  not  positively  certain.  I 
do  not  know  the  precise  time  of  his  death,  only  that  he 
departed  this  life  a  good  while  ago. 

He  was  a  man  of  child-like  simplicity  of  manners; 
as  tender-hearted  as  a  woman,  and  would  have  stepped 
aside  to  keep  from  treading  on  a  worm.  If  he  had 
his  faults,  their  name  was  not  legion,  and  what- 
ever they  may  have  been,  I  have  no  great  capacity 
now  for  remembering  them,  and  shall  therefore  leave 
them  for  some  more  malevolent  historian  than  myself 
to  record. 

He  was  Circuit  Judge  of  Cook  county  at  one  period 
of  his  life,  and  all  the  lawyers  who  have  survived  him, 
who  practiced  in  his  court,  speak  of  him  as  one  of  the 
ablest  judges  that  ever  presided  as  judge  of  the  Circuit 
Court  of  Cook  County.  He  left  three  children,  two  of 
whom  have  gone  to  rest  with  their  father.  His  son 
Edward,  whom  I  have  met,  is  married  and  living  in 
Chicago.  I  have  understood  that  his  father  left  a  very 
handsome  property  to  his  family. 

I  will  wind  up  this  sketch  by  saying  what  can  be 
sajd  of  but  few  men,  that  I  never  met  with  any  person 
who  spoke  an  evil  word  of  Giles  Spring. 


388  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


SAMUEL  H.  TBEAT. 


AMUEL  H.  TREAT  has  been  a  presiding  judge 
in  the  State  of  Illinois  for  over  thirty  odd 
years,  part  of  the  time  on  the  Supreme  Bench 
of  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  part  of  the  time  a  Judge 
of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the 
Southern  District  of  Illinois.  In  all  the  judicial  posi- 
tions he  has  held  he  has  maintained  a  character  for 
unblemished  integrity  and  spotless  honesty  and  honor. 
I  cannot  fix  the  precise  date  when  my  personal 
acquaintance  with  him  commenced,  but  I  think  it 
dates  back  to  about  1843,  or  '44.  I  never  knew  him 
as  a  practicing  lawyer,  but  only  as  a  judge  of  the 
higher  courts  of  our  State  and  Nation.  He  was  a 

o 

sterling  Democrat,  and  as  true  as  steel  to  that  great 
and  noble  old  party,  but  he  never  suffered  his  politics 
to  mingle  in  the  slightest  degree  with  his  judicial 
opinions  or  deliberations.  He  was  remarkable  for  his 
urbanity  and  suavity  of  manners,  as  well  when  off  as 
when  on  the  bench.  If  any  person  will  read  the  reports 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois,  they  will  find  the 
opinions  of  Judge  Treat  to  be  the  neatest  and  tersest 
of  them  all,  and  the  nicest  legal  criticism  will  be  un- 
able to  detect  an  error  in  the  points  he  has  made  or 
the  reasons  he  has  brought  to  support  them. 


SAMUEL  H.  TREAT.  389 

Judge  Treat,  as  I  understand,  is  a  native  of  the 
State  of  New  York.  His  elegant  lady  is  a  native  of 
Virginia,  and  is  closely  connected  with  some  of  the 
oldest  and  best  families  of  that  renowned  common- 
wealth. 

Judge  Treat  is  still  living  and  resides  at  Springfield, 
111.,  where  I  think  he  has  resided  for  the  last  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  years,  and  he  is  still  judge  of  the  Federal 
Court,  to  which  he  is  an  honor  and  an  ornament,  and 
long  may  he  live  to  adorn  that  station. 

My  acquaintance  with  him  has  been  long,  and  our 
friendship  of  the  warmest  character.  He  was  an  inti- 
mate acquaintance  and  personal  friend  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  in  his  life-time,  although  they  differed  in 
politics.  Judge  Treat  is  now,  with  the  exception  of 
Judge  Breese,  one  of  the  oldest  judges  in  the  State  of 
Illinois.  I  think  he  is  sixty-five  or  seventy  years  of 
age.  He  is  a  quiet,  unambitious  man,  and  precisely 
the  kind  of  timber  out  of  which  judges  should  be  made. 


390  LUMBER'S  REMINISCENCES. 


LTLE  SMITH. 


|YLE  SMITH  was  a  lawyer  who  settled  in 
Chicago  at  an  early  day,  and  was  decidedly,  in 
my  opinion,  one  of  the  prettiest  and  most  elo- 
quent speakers  I  ever  heard.  I  met  him  in  a  Whig 
convention  at  Springfield,  Ills.,  about  the  year  1844, 
and  I  think  it  would  not  be  out  of  place  to  bestow 
upon  him  the  compliment,  paid  by  the  "  Old  Hanger," 
Gov.  Reynolds,  to  Henry  Clay.  When  asked  by  some 
of  his  younger  friends  what  he  thought  of  Mr.  Clay's 
eloquence,  replied,  as  I  have  stated  in  another  place, 
that  "  the  only  thing  he  could  compare  it  to,  if  they 
could  imagine  such  a  thing,  was  fifty  fiddles,  all  in  full 
blast. 

All  that  Lyle  Smith  wanted,  was  a  more  portly 
personage  to  make  him  one  of  the  most  commanding 
orators  I  ever  heard.  He  was  a  very  small  man,  fall- 
ing considerably  below  the  medium  size,  but  possess- 
ing a  voice  like  a  trumpet,  and  as  sweet  and  mellow 
in  its  tones  as  music  played  upon  the  waters  on  a  calm 
summer  evening.  He  did  not  figure  largely  as  a  lawyer, 
for  the  reason  that  he  had  no  necessity  to  do  so,  being 
the  owner  in  his  own  right  of  choice  tracts  of  lands  in 


LYLE  SMITH. 


391 


the  State  of  Illinois,  which  he  counted  by  thousands 
of  acres,  besides  any  amount  of  money  which  he  called 
upon  his  father  to  supply,  who  was  a  wealthy  capi- 
talist in  the  city  of  Philadelphia. 

I  have  been  told  that  Lyle  kept  open  house  in 
Chicago  to  all  his  friends  who  came  to  see  him  from 
every  point  of  the  compass,  whom  he  entertained  with 
princely  magnificence  and  elegance.  He  has  long 
since  gone  to  join  the  thousands  of  his  contemporaries 
who  have  passed  away,  and  we  trust  that  he  has  not 
found  the  change  disagreeable. 


392  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 


PATEIOK  BALLINGALL. 


1ATRICK  BALLINGALL  is  the  next  name  I 
shall  introduce  here,  which  I  do  with  some 
reluctance,  for  the  reason  that  I  am  not  in 
possession  of  sufficient  facts  and  materials  to  do  him 
complete  justice.  A  considerable  number  of  his  cotem- 
poraries  are  still  living  in  the  city  of  Chicago,  and 
they  all  speak  of  his  talents  and  social  qualities  as 
being  of  the  very  highest  order.  I  met  him  once  or 
twice  at  Springfield,  but  had  no  opportunity  of  testing 
him  further  than  as  a  social  boon  companion,  who 
liked  his  friends  and  had  the  capacity  of  making  them 
feel  agreeable.  He  was  a  Scotchman  by  birth  and 
education.  He  was  Prosecuting-Attorney  for  Cook 
county  at  one  time,  arid  I  have  been  told  by  lawyers 
who  knew  him  in  that  capacity,  that  no  abler  or  fiercer 
prosecutor  had  ever  filled  that  office  in  Cook  county. 
They  speak  of  him  in  unmeasured  terms  of  applause, 
giving  to  him  the  first  place  at  the  bar  while  on  the 
theatre  of  this  life,  especially  in  the  criminal  depart- 
ment of  the  law. 

I  am  truly  sorry  that  I  am  unable  to  give  any  length- 
ier notice  of  my  friend  PatBallingall.  This,  however, 
must  suffice.  He  has  been  dead  many  years,  and  I 
trust  he  is  happy,  wherever  he  may  be. 


GEOKGE  MANIEKRE.  393 


GEOKGE  MAN1EBKE. 


EOEGE  MA-NIEERE,  the  next  name  that  I 
introduce  to  my  readers,  is  a  lawyer  of  very 
old  standing  in  the  city  of  Chicago.  He  was 
on  the  bench  of  the  Circuit  Court  of  Cook  County  when 
I  removed  to  the  city  of  Chicago  in  1860,  where  he 
continued  to  the  time  of  his  death,  which  took  place,  I 
think,  some  eight  or  ten  years  ago.  He  was  a  most 
excellent  judge,  a  profound  and  deeply  read  lawyer, 
and  had  a  character  for  unimpeachable  integrity  which 
he  richly  deserved.  Slander  itself  never  uttered  a  syl- 
lable to  tarnish  his  good  name  and  honesty  as  a  judge. 
Bribery  never  dared  to  approach  him.  I  never  had  a 
case  before  him  without  feeling  the  most  unbounded 
confidence  in  his  purity  and  intelligence.  I  believe 
the  bar  who  knew  him  would  unite  to-day  in  saying, 
"We  never  had  a  more  upright  or  intelligent  judge." 

He  added  to  his  learning  as  a  lawyer  an  urbanity 
on  the  bench,  with  a  courtesy  which  he  extended  to 
all  his  lawyers  alike,  whether  old  or  young. 

He  was  a  man  of  very  prepossessing  appearance, 
rather  inclined  to  corpulence,  but  still,  nevertheless,  of 
a  very  imposing  presence,  the  chief  element  of  which 
was,  he  always  met  you  with  a  smile  which  beamed 
from  his  face  like  sunshine.  He  put  on  no  false  dig- 


39 A  LINDER'S  REMINISCENCES. 

nity  on  account  of  his  judicial  position,  but  was  emi- 
nently social,  and  conversed  upon  terms  of  perfect 
equality  with  all  the  members  of  the  bar,  and  there 
was  not  one  amongst  us  who  did  not  love  him  as  a 
brother. 

I  know  nothing  more  worthy  to  be  related  of  George 
Manierre,  except  that  I  have  heard  it  said  that  he  was 
the  author  of  the  first  city  charter  of  Chicago.  He 
left  a  handsome  estate  to  his  family,  and,  what  is  bet- 
ter, an  unsullied  name  and  fame  as  a  priceless  legacy 
to  his  children,  and  there  I  leave  him,  knowing  that 
posterity  will  take  good  care  of  his  fame. 


EETKOSPECTIVE.  305 


KETROSPECTIVE. 


>W,  my  worthy  readers,  pardon  me,  if  you 
please,  while  I  step  aside  to  speak  of  the 
humble  author  of  these  memoirs,  who  has  got 
them  up  for  your  amusement  and  entertainment,  if 
not  for  your  instruction.  I  think  in  the  introductory 
part  of  this  work  I  have  brought  myself  up  to  my 
advent  into  Illinois  in  1835.  As  I  have  already  said, 
on  the  next  year  after  my  entrance  into  the  State,  I 
was  elected  to  the  House  of  Ilepresentatives  in  the 
State  legislature  of  Illinois,  from  the  county  of  Coles. 
On  the  11  th  day  of  February,  1837,  the  legislature  on 
joint  ballot  elected  me  Attorney-General  of  the  State, 
over  Benjamin  Bond,  who  was  a  member  from  Clinton 
county.  You  may  well  imagine  how  a  boy  of  plebeian 
stock  would  feel  by  being  so  soon  elevated  to  so  high 
a  position.  As  the  law  then  stood,  it  required  the 
Attorney-General  to  reside  at  the  seat  of  government, 
which  law  I  aui  sorry  to  say  I  did  not  obey,  but  took 
my  family  to  Alton,  where  we  lived  for  a  year  or  so — 
that  family  then  consisting  of  my  wife  and  self  and  a 
little  girl  about  five  or  six  years  old.  In  1838,  we 
returned  to  Coles  county,  Illinois,  and  from  that  time 
up  to  1860  I  led  a  career  of  proud  legal  success  on  the 


396  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

Wabash  circuit  which  makes  my  heart  now  swell  with 
pride  when  I  think  of  it.  I  made  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands of  dollars  on  that  circuit,  and  I  spent  it  liber- 
ally; was  not  mean  or  penurious  in  its  distribution; 
and  I  can  lay  my  hand  upon  my  heart  and  say  that  I 
never  persecuted  or  oppressed  an  unfortunate  man  in 
my  character  of  lawyer.  I  have  met  and  fought  the 
proud  and  rich  oppressor  on  hundreds  of  legal  battle- 
fields, and  if  any  man  will  go  to-day  on  my  old  circuit 
he  will  find  the  above  statement  to  be  true.  I  do  not 
pretend  to  perfection,  for  I  know  that  I  am  a  poor, 
erring,  sinful  man;  but  whatever  my  faults  may  have 
been,  and  I  know  they  have  been  rather  grievous,  I 
think  my  heart  has  always  been  in  the  right  place,  and 
I  think  that  I  shall  leave  to  my  children  a  character 
for  integrity  and  charity  of  which  they  will  not  be 
ashamed;  but  it  is  not  my  business  to  Jbe  judge  in  my 
own  case,  and  I  therefore  leave  it  to  posterity  to  deter- 
mine whether  I  have  been  a  worthy  man  and  lawyer 
or  not;  and  with  that  decision  I  shall  rest  content.  If 
poverty  is  a  crime,  then  1  have  been  a  great  criminal, 
and  all  I  have  got  to  say  is  to  exclaim  with  the  pub- 
lican, "The  Lord  have  mercy  upon  me  a  sinner." 

I  have  been  sixteen  years  in  the  city  of  Chicago, 
and  during  that  time  have  attended  to  many  cases  in 
the  various  courts  of  law  and  equity,  and  I  think  the 
judges  before  whom  I  have  appeared  may  be  safely 
appealed  to  as  to  their  opinion  of  my  course  as  a  fair 
and  honorable  lawyer;  and  I  was  never  a  candidate 
for  any  office  during  those  whole  sixteen  years,  unless 
it  might  be  thought  I  was  so  when  I  presented  my 
name  a  few  years  ago  to  the  judges  of  the  Circuit  and 


KETEOSPECTIVE.  397 

«. 

Superior  Courts  for  nomination  to  the  humble  office 
of  Justice  of  the  Peace,  which  they  failed  to  give  me, 
and  for  which  I  have  no  complaint  to  make  against 
them.  That  office  would  have  given  me  a  support  in 
my  old  age ;  but  as  I  did  not  get  it,  I  utter  no  com- 
plaint, feeling  perfectly  assured  that  that  Being  who 
"  tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb  "  will  take  care 
of  me  and  mine. 

I  have  said  enough  about  myself  as  connected  with 
other  names  and  incidents  without  saying  any  more 
in  this  place.  If  there  is  anything  more  to  be  written 
in  reference  to  myself,  I  shall  leave  that  matter  to  my 
friends  and  not  undertake  to  applaud  myself. 

My  worthy  readers,  in  collecting  the  numerous 
names,  and  the  incidents  connected  therewith,  has 
been  to  me  a  very  laborious  and  painful  task;  but  I  do 
not  begrudge  it  to  you  if  it  shall  furnish  you  with  any 
entertainment  or  amusement.  This  work,  humble  as 
it  is,  is  intended  for  the  American  people,  and  the 
American  public,  whom  I  sincerely  love,  and  I  trust 
in  God  they  will  long  remain  in  the  possession  of 
their  rights  and  liberties,  and  never  forfeit  them  by 
any  blind  and  heedless  devotion  to  any  mere  popular 
name.  I  consider  this  nation  as  having  been  planted 
here  by  the  fiat  and  will  of  Almighty  God,  and  as 
having  been  preserved  by  his  benevolence  and  power 
to  the  present  day.  "We  shall  soon  reach  the  hun- 
dredth year  of  our  independence,  and  the  doctrine  of 
popular  sovereignty  still  prevails;  and  every  lover  of 
his  country  feels  that  it  is  written  upon  every  part  of 
the  stars  and  stripes  <  f  the  glorious  ensign  of  our  lib- 
erties and  independence,  that  we  shall  forever  be  a  free 


308  LINDEK'S  REMINISCENCES. 

and  republican  government,  and  that  all  power  dwells 
with  and  emanates  from  the  people.  I  believe  that 
the  day  is  not  far  distant  when  the  fires  of  republican 
liberty  which  has  been  lighted  on  these  shores,  will 
shed  their  light  upon  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  and 
our  glorious  institutions  be  adopted  by  all  the  civil- 
ized nations  of  the  world.  Behold  the  progress  of  this 
nation,  now  only  a  hundred  years  of  age,  which  started 
with  three  millions  of  people,  and  now  numbering  over 
forty  millions,  with  more  miles  of  railroads  and  tele- 
graph lines  than  is  possessed  by  all  the  nations  of 
Europe;  possessing  an  extent  of  territory  and  a  fertil- 
ity of  soil  sufficient  to  support  and  sustain  twenty 'or 
thirty  times  the  numbers  that  now  dwell  noon  our  soil. 


APPENDIX. 


APPENDIX. 


BY  HON.  JOSEPH  GILLESPIE. 


j|EN  MILLS  was  a  finished  scholar,  a  perfect 
master  of  language,  of  a  highly  poetic  imagi- 
i-2Sl  nation,  and  gifted  with  marvelous  tenacity  of 
memory.  On  his  way  out  West  from  Massachusetts, 
his  traveling  companion,  whose  name  was  Wait,  was  a 
magnificent  singer.  They  were  wild  youngsters,  and 
spent  their  money  in  such  a  lavish  way  that  they  got 
"strapped"  in  Richmond,  Virginia,  and  it  became  a 
very  important  question  with  them  how  they  should 
"  raise  the  wind."  The  idea  struck  Ben  that  he  might 
do  something  in  the  way  of  preaching.  His  memory 
was  stored  with  any  quantity  of  splendid  sermons  com- 
posed by  his  father,  who  was  one  of  the  most  eminent 
and  eloquent  divines  in  IsTevv  England.  Ben  had  acted 
as  his  father's  arcanuens's,  and  his  splendid  memory 
retained  the  substance  of  the  sermons.  On  this  occa- 
sion he  contrived  to  let  it  be  known  in  the  right  quar- 
ter that  he  and  his  companion  were  sent  to  perform 
missionary  labor  in  the  West.  Mills  was  soon  invited 
to  preach,  which  he  did  with  wonderful  unction.  His 
brilliant  oratorical  displays,  coupled  with  Wait's  un- 
equaled  singing,  carried  the  congregation  completely 


400  APPENDIX. 

away.  The  people  were  in  ecstasies ;  space  could  hardly 
be  found  for  their  audiences.  Richmond  was  in  trans- 
ports. From  the  accounts  which  I  remember  to  have 
heard  at  the  time,  the  excitement  there  was  equal  to 
that  raised  by  Moody  and  Sankey.  Now  Ben  hinted 
in  one  of  his  discourses  that  a  little  material  aid  would 
not  come  amiss,  and  instantly  their  coffers  were  filled. 
The  proud  old  Virginians  were  not  going  to  allow  such 
apostles  to  go  empty-handed  to  the  work  of  converting 
the  heathen.  Mills  and  "Wait  managed  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible to  leave,  and  it  was  a  considerable  time  before 
the  Richmond  folks  found  out  that  they  had  been  sold. 

Ben  was  unequaled  in  repartee.  lie  was  attending 
to  a  case  once  in  Galena,  and  had  for  his  client  a  black 
man;  the  opposite  party  was  a  white  man.  They 
agreed  upon  a  compromise,  and  Mills  went  up  to  Judge 
Young,  followed  by  the  parties,  and  stated  that  they 
had  compromised  the  case  and  desired  that  his  Honor 
would  enter  the  terms  upon  his  minutes.  The  judge 
said  he  would  pay  no  attention  to  any  agreement  unless 
it  was  reduced  to  writing.  Mills,  quick  as  lightning, 
pointing  to  the  parties,  said:  "If  your  Honor  please, 
here  it  is,  in  Hack  and  white." 

Mills  once  joined  a  temperance  society,  and  while 
he  belonged  to  it  a  change  took  place  in  the  style  of 
drinking  vessels — tumblers  had  been  superseded  by 
wine-glasses.  Mills  relapsed,  and  was  accosted  one 
day  in  a  grocery  where  he  was  nourishing  a  small 
wine-glass  in  his  hand,  by  David  Prickett,  who  said: 
"  Mills,  I  thought  you  had  quit  drinking."  "  So  I 
have,"  said  Ben,  holding  up  his  litttle  glass,  "in  a 
great  measure" 


APPENDIX.  401 

A.  "W.  CAVAKLT,  a  member  of  the  bar  of  Green 
county,  interposed  a  general  demurrer  to  one  of  Mills' 
pleadings,  and  sought  thereunder  to  take  advantage  of 
some  matter  which  could  only  be  reached  by  special 
demurrer.  When  Cavarly  discovered  that  he  could 
only  reach  the  detect  by  special  demurrer,  he  insisted 
that  his  was  a  special  demurrer  because  he  had  under- 
scored parts  of  it".  Judge  Lockwood  decided  against 
him.  At  dinner  the  same  day,  at  which  the  judge  and 
members  of  the  bar  were  present,  Cavarly  .sent  his  plate 
to  Mills  to  be  furnished  with  what  he  thought  was  a 
cut  of  venison.  Mills  sent  him  a  piece  which  Cavarly 
discovered  was  beef,  and  he  remarked:  "  Brother  Mills, 
I  wanted  venison,  and  you  sent  me  beef."  "  Oh," 
said  Mills,  "underscore  it,  brother  Cavarly,  and  that 
will  make  it  venison." 

Cavarly,  who  was  not  a  very  good  scholar,  used  to 
pronounce  the  word  unique,  you-ni-kue.  Some  one 
asked  Mills  the  meaning  of  the  word  as  Cavarly  pro- 
nounced jt.  Mills,  putting  on  a  grave  air,  said  that  it 
was  the  fern-ale  of  unicorn. 

A  good  story  is  told  of  Cavarly,  which  may  be  men- 
tioned in  this  connection,  as  illustrating  the  difficulty 
of  getting  any  information  from  persons  who  are  indis- 
posed to  tell  what  they  know:  Cavarly  brought  suit 
once  against  a  man  for  immoderately  riding  a  horse  he 
had  borrowed  from  the  plaintiff,  whereby  the  horse  was 
injured,  and  he  sought  to  make  out  his  case  by  a  wit- 
ness who  was  clearly  on  the  other  side.  The  witness 
was  an  oily-tongued,  smooth-faced  chap,  who  wore  an 
expression  that  was  "  child-like  a-nd  bland."  Cav- 
arly called  his  witness  to  the  stand,  seeming  to  -be 
26 


402  APPENDIX. 

aware  of  the  attitude  of  the  fellow.  Said  he:  "Wit- 
ness, do  you  know  Mr.  So-and-so?"  (the  defendant). 

"  Yes,  sir." 

"How  long  have  you  known  him?" 

"  Well,  about  ten  years." 

"  Did  you  ever  see  him  ride  horseback?" 

"Yes,  frequently." 

"  Well,  now,  witness,  I  want  you  to  state  to  the  jury, 
under  the  solemn  sanction  of  the  oath  you  have  just- 
taken,  how  he  rides." 

Cavarly's  object  was  to  prove  that  he  was  a  hard 
rider. 

"  Well,"  said  the  witness,  "  Mr.  Cavarly,  he  always 
rides  straddle" 

Cavarly  was  very  indignant,  and  said,  "  Witness,  we 
all  know  that  every  man  in  this  country  rides  '  strad- 
dle? We  don't  need  to  be  told  that  by  you.  What 
we  want  to  know  is  how  he  rides.  How  does  he  ride 
when  he  is  in  company?" 

"Well,  sir,  he  generally  keeps  up." 

Cavarly's  rage  now  knew  no  bounds.  He  called 
upon  the  court  to  protect  him  from  the  insolence  of 
the  witness,  and  said  it  must  be  apparent  that,  the  wit- 
ness was  trying  to  evade  giving  his  testimony  against 
the  defendant.  The  court  admonished  the  witness 
that  he  would  have  to  punish  him  if  he  did  not  answer 
according  to  the  spirit  of*  Mr.  Cavarly's  interrogato- 
ries. The  witness  said  that  he  was  answering  the  ques- 
tions and  would  answer  the  best  he  could. 

"  Now,"  said  Cavarly,  "  witness,  we  don't  want  to 
know  whether  the  defendant  rides  'straddle'  or  not, 
or  whether  he  keeps  up  when  he  is  riding  in  company. 


APPENDIX.  403 

We  want  to  know  how  lie  rides.  How  does  he  ride 
when  he  is  by  himself  ? " 

"  Mr.  Cavarly,  upon  my  word  I  can't  answer  that 
question,  for  I  never  was  with  him  when  he  was  by 
himself?" 

This  of  course  created  a  great  laugh  at  Cavarly's 
expense,  who  berated  the  fellow  soundly,  who  never- 
theless pretended  to  be  surprised  to  think  that  any  one 
should  suppose  that  he  was  not  answering  in  good 
faith.  Cavarly  was  obliged  to  dismiss  the  witness  and 
also  his  case,  although  every  one  knew  that  the  witness 
could  have  answered  in  the  way  that  would  have  sus- 
tained Cavarly's  case. 

Mills  was  appointed  by  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives to  manage  in  the  case  of  the  proceedings  for  the 
impeachment  of  Judge  Theophilus  W.  Smith,  and  he 
made  an  argument  which  would  have  reflected  credit 
upon  Prentiss  of  Mississippi — to  whom  he  bore  a  very 
close  resemblance  in  the  structure  of  his  mind.  I 
heard  the  Hon.  Cyrus  Edwards,  who  was  a  splendid 
orator  himself,  and  a  frequent  listener  to  Clay  and  the 
other  luminaries  of  Kentucky,  say  that  he  never  heard 
anything  that  surpassed  the  effort  of  Mills  on  that 
occasion.  Many  brilliant  passages  from  his  speech 
were  memorized  and  quoted  at  the  social  gatherings 
and  upon  the  streets.  It  was  one  of  the  most  eloquent, 
finished  and  scholarly  productions  that  ever  fell  upon 
the  human  ear.  Smith  had  no  fears  of  impeachment 
until  after  he  heard  Mills'  speech;  from  that  time  he 
trembled  in  his  boots. 

Mills  prosecuted  Winchester  in  the  trial  for  the 
murder  of  Smith,  in  Edwardsville.  Grimdy,  who 


404:  APPENDIX. 

defended  Winchester,  and  who  was  the  greatest  crim- 
inal lawyer  in  the  West,  and  perhaps  in  the  world, 
denounced  the  prosecution  for  employing  a  man 
against  his  client,  "  before  the  force  of  whose  genius 
truth,,justice  and  law  were  in  danger  of  succumbing." 
~Not  even  the  masterly  powers  of  Felix  Grundy  could 
have  saved  Winchester  had  Mills  not  been  a  Yankee. 
Grundy  rung  the  changes  upon  the  crime  of  being 
born  in  New  England.  He  thanked  God  that  there 
was  but  one  man  on  the  jury  who  first  drew  his  breath 
north  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  and  that  man  had 
lived  long  enough  in  the  West  to  have  thrown  off  the 
perversities  of  his  Yankee  nature. 

It  was  at  this  period  that  the  Yankees  were  so  odi- 
ous that  they  were  preached  about  and  denounced 
from  the  pulpit.  A  story  illustrative  of  this  is  told 
of  old  "  Daddy  Biggs,"  a  hardshell  Baptist,  who 
believed  that  wherever  the  word  sprinkle  appeared  in 
the  Bible  it  was  a  Yankee  trick.  He  was  preaching 
once  about  the  richness  of  God's  grace,  which  he  said 
"  tack  in  the  isles  of  the  sea  and  the  uttermost  parts 
of  the  yerth."  It  embraced  the  Esquimaux  and  the 
Hottentots,  "  and  some,  my  brethering,  go  so  fur  as 
to  suppose  that  it  takes  in  these  poor  benighted  Yan- 
kees, l>ut  I  don't  go  that  fur" 

JUSTIN  BUTTERFIELD  was  a  man  of  great  ability.  As 
a  lawyer,  perhaps,  he  had  no  equal  in  the  State,  and  was 
remarkably  felicitous  in  his  method  of  expressing  him- 
self. He  was  asked  whether  he  was  in  favor  of  the 
Mexican  war  or  not.  He  said  he  had  blasted  his  po- 
litical prospects  by  opposing  the  war  of  1812,  and  ever 


APPENDIX.  405 

since  that  time  he  had  been  in  favor  of  war,  pestilence 
and  famine. 

He  was  perfectly  familiar  with  the  scriptures,  and 
used  scriptural  quotations  and  illustrations  with  great 
effect.  While  he  was  District  Attorney,  Ben  Bond 
Avas  U.  S.  Marshal,  and  one  or  two  of  his  brothers 
were  deputies,  and  were  quite  annoying  to  Butterfiekl, 
whose  patience  at  one  time  was  tried  beyond  endur- 
ance. He  remarked  to  some  one:  "  I  would  to  God 
that  not  only  thou,  but  also  all  that  hear  me  this  day, 
were  both  almost  and  altogether  such  as  I  am,  except 
these  Bonds" 

David  A.  Smith,  of  Jacksonville,  who  had  somehow 
incurred  the  displeasure  of  Butterfiekl,  was  sitting  one 
day  in  the  U.  S.  court  room,  sleeping,  the  sun  shining 
upon  his  bald,  sleek  head.  Some  one  directed  Butter- 
field's  attention  to  him,  when  he  instantly  exclaimed, 
in  his  gruff  voice  :  "  The  light  shineth  upon  darkness, 
but  the  darkness  comprehendeth  it  not." 

His  happiest  scriptural  illustration  was  when  he  was 
defending  the  constitutionality  of  the  Shawneetown 
Bank.  The  Constitution  of  Illinois  of  1818,  provided 
that  there  should  be  no  bank  except  the  State  Bank 
and  its  branches,  and  also  the  banks  that  were  then  in 
existence.  The  Shawneetown  bank  was  chartered  be- 
fore that  time,  but  in  1835  its  charter  was  extended. 
A  writ  of  quo  warranto  was  sued  out  against  the 
bark,  and  in  the  argument  it  was  contended  by  the 
counsel  who  sued  out  the  writ,  that  the  extension  of 
the  charter  was  in  law  and  in  fact  the  creation  of  a  new 
bank.  Butterfield  was  restive  while  this  line  of  argu- 
ment was  being  pursued,  and  he  arose  to  reply  with 


406  APPENDIX. 

an  expression  of  contempt  in  his  face.  He  said  he 
would  like  to  be  informed  by  the  gentlemen  if  they 
had  met  with  it  in  their  reading,  which  he  very  much 
doubted,  however,  whether  when  the  Lord  lengthened 
out  the  life  of  Hezekiah  fifteen  years,  he  had  made  a 
new  man,  or  was  he  the  same  old  Hezekiali? " 

Of  FKIDLEY,  of  whom  Gen.  Linder  speaks  in  his  me- 
moirs, it  might  be  said  that  he  was  one  of  the  cutest 
men  that  ever  lived.  With  hardly  any  education,  he 
was  a  decided  success  in  the  courts  and  in  the  halls  of 
legislation.  His  remark  to  the  jury  in  the  case  where 
it  was  contended  that  the  bill  stolen  by  the  defendant 
was  not  worth  five  dollars,  as  it  was  at  a  discount  of 
two  per  cent.,  that  as  it  was  par  for  goods  or-labor, 
the  defendant  should  not  be  allowed  to  steal  it  at  a  dis- 
count, is  worth  its  weight  in  gold.  At  one  time  he 
was  attending  to  a  case  before  Judge  Caton,  and  he 
was  bringing  up  some  question  which  had  been  deci- 
ded against  him,  and  the  judge  told  him  that  if  he 
wanted  that  question  re-examined  he  must  take  it  to 
a  court  of  errors;  upon  which  Fridley  remarked,  in  an 
undertone,  that  if  you  would  not  take  this  court  for  a 
court  of  errors,  he  did  not  know  where  to  go  to  find 
one.  This  sally  was  overheard  by  the  judge,  and  it- 
amused  him  exceedingly,  and  he  often  related  it  with 
great  gusto. 


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